gay writes

8:04: What’s in this for me? Obama is going to answer those questions.

8:06: Health insurance will be paid for. 2/3 of the cost will be reallocation, including subsidies that aren’t working. “working through proposals” to cover the other 1/3. But I promise, it won’t add to the deficit and we won’t tax the middle class. Translate: rich people, you are screwed.

8:08: This isn’t about me. This about YOU, America. Americans want this and we can’t let them down. (Are polls saying that these days?)

8:11: The cost of health care. How are we going to pay for it? 2/3 is deficit neutral by tax dollars already spent. The other 1/3? There are a number of different ways: limit the deductions for the wealthiest Americans. Wealthy Americans taking the same percentage deduction as middle class, that will pay for it. But I’m open to new ideas.

8:15: Obama is selling health care the way he sold the stimulus. We need to do this. If we don’t do it we’re in big trouble.

8:18: Why the rush on health care? We’re rushing because it’s urgent. People are writing me letters. If you don’t set deadlines things don’t happen. (Is Obama afraid he will never be as popular as he is now and that’s the only way this can happen?)

8:22: Is there a mandate? Unless you have a single payer system you’re not going to reach everyone; you can’t always reach that guy that’s going to get hit by a bus. Our plan will cover 97-98% of America.

8:25: I’m happy with the republicans that support my plan. Maybe they won’t vote health care, but we want their ideas.

8:28: Will Americans have to give anything up? YES, they will have to give up things that won’t make them healthier. (Smoking? or a broken health care system?)

8:30: Blue pills and red pills: Are we in the matrix?

8:32: Back to the deficit and the stimulus…we lost trillions…bye bye money. Obama is doing a step by step recap of his first seven months in office.

8:34: We inherited this deficit, we have not reduced it as much as we need to but health care reform won’t add to that deficit, in fact, it will lower it.

8:38: Are you fulfilling the promise on transparency? The kick-off was on cspan; well now we have all kinds of meetings, if they want them on cspan they can do it. We’re much better on transparency than we were.

8:40: A harder line on Wall Street? Fees on risky lending practices? Obama retells the story of his first seven months of presidency. Hey, we’re not going to fall off a cliff anymore. Now that the financial system has “bounced back” the banks are profitable and are paying the tarp money back…and that’s good…but we haven’t seen the change in behavior that got us into the mess in the first place. What should we do? We need financial regulatory reform. If we don’t pass the reform then we’ll have the same problem we had before. Same reasoning for stimulus and health care. If we don’t do it we’re in trouble.

8:46: Obama’s poll numbers are low in Ohio, question from the Cleveland Plain dealer.

8:50: Obama is clearly not a physician. This is where Howard Dean would come in handy. Shoutout to Cleveland Clinic.

8:52: Henry Louis Gates question…Obama is at his most comfortable when he can make jokes.