took his health care overhaul proposal to one of its more skeptical audiences, telling doctors at the
American Medical Association conference in Chicago that the United States is “not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women and children.”
Mr. Obama’s much-anticipated address appeared carefully calibrated to woo doctors to support — or at least, to not actively oppose — his sweeping health proposals. He also sought to reassure doctors who are skittish about his proposal for a government-run insurance plan as one option from which consumers could choose.
“I understand that you are concerned that today’s
Medicare rates will be applied broadly in a way that means our cost savings are coming off your backs,” Mr. Obama said, in the keynote address at the A.M.A. annual meeting. “These are legitimate concerns, but ones, I believe, that can be overcome.”
Mr. Obama’s quick trip to Chicago to try to sell doctors on his health proposal is part of a wider White House effort to push what is a central tenet of Mr. Obama’s domestic policy program. He called health reform central to the American economy, and promised that he could enact his ambitious plan without burdening the budget deficit.
While he did not provide many specifics, Mr. Obama said that he wants to look into “a range of ideas” about how to put patient safety first, let doctors focus on practicing medicine, and encourage broader use of evidence-based guidelines for care. “That’s how we can scale back the excessive defensive medicine reinforcing our current system of more treatment rather than better care.”
Mr. Obama did not commit to specific limits on malpractice lawsuits, saying that would be unfair to patients. But he sought to address the concerns of many doctors who complain that malpractice litigation is part of the reason why health costs have soared.
At times, Mr. Obama struck a professorial note, lecturing Americans to stop
smoking — without referencing his own battles to break the habit — and to seek
mammograms and colon-
cancer screening.
Health care reform, he said, means going for a run, going to the gym, and staying away from video games. It also, he said, means laying off junk food.
“That’s a lesson Michelle and I have tried to instill in our daughters with the White House vegetable garden that Michelle planted,” Mr. Obama said.
He maintained his line that Americans will still be able to choose their own doctors. In fact, throughout much of his speech, he sought to empathize with doctors, and criticized a system which he said has created incentives to run more expensive tests than necessary and pushes doctors to see more patients in an effort to make more money.
“That is not why you became doctors,” Mr. Obama said. “That is not why you put in all those hours in the anatomy suite or the O.R. That is not what brings you back to a patient’s bedside to check in or make you call a loved one to say it’ll be fine. You did not enter this profession to be beancounters and paper-pushers.”
Mr. Obama drew cheers from his audience when he said, “I recognize that it will be hard to make some of these changes if doctors feel like they are constantly looking over their shoulder for fear of lawsuits.”
But it remains to be seen how far he will be willing to go on the malpractice issue. On Capitol Hill, Democrats drafting health legislation have so far shown little appetite for taking on the liability issue.
Mr. Obama’s ideas on health reform are facing mounting criticism — not only from the A.M.A. and from Republicans, who don’t like the public insurance program, but also from the hospital industry, which doesn’t like a proposal Mr. Obama announced on Saturday to pay for his health care overhaul in part by cutting certain hospital reimbursements.
In Washington, Representative
Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia and the minority whip, issued a statement before Mr. Obama had completed his speech in Chicago.
“Democrats are touting a government-run health care option that creates an unlevel playing field leading to the destruction of the private market, reducing choice and putting Washington bureaucrats in charge of family health care decisions,” Mr. Cantor said. He added that “it’s time for the administration to end the happy talk and get down to the difficult decisions ahead.”
