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Obama: Stop Screaming, Get Real

By Mat Probasco, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 16, 2009 5:38 AM CDT

(Newser) – President Barack Obama hit the New York Times Op-Ed pages today, calling for "serious debate" on health-care-reform, "not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed." Reforms will benefit the 46 million uninsured Americans as well as those with insurance by cutting rampant waste, he wrote.

"Much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices," the president notes. "Despite what we’ve seen on television, I believe that serious debate is taking place at kitchen tables all across America." Obama skewered insurers, saying they "profit by discriminating against sick people" while 14,000 Americans lose coverage daily.

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James Newman protests against the health care reform plan supported by President Barack Obama during a rally yesterday in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

President Barack Obama listens to a question as he speaks about health care during a town hall meeting at Central High School in Grand Junction, Colo. Saturday, Aug. 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Barack Obama listens to a question as he speaks about health care during a town hall meeting in Colorado yesterday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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This is about America’s future, and whether we will be able to look back years from now and say that this was the moment when we made the changes we needed, and gave our children a better life. - Barack Obama

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