David Axelrod at Missouri Boys State – June 14, 2014.

David Axelrod, campaign strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns and former senior advisor in President Obama’s administration, spoke in Warrensburg last night at the opening evening assembly for the 75th session of Missouri Boys State held on the campus of the University of Central Missouri. Axelrod spoke in prepared remarks for about twenty-five minutes and then took questions for an hour.  

The transcript of a portion of the question and answer session:

Question: …What political issues would you like to see us [our generation] tackle?

David Axelrod: Well, I, I, the, the one of them, and it sounds trite, but one of them is the one I just mentioned, which is we’ve got to restore civility in our politics. It’s gonna be much harder to solve any of the other problems unless we do that. We have to respect each other more in our politics. And that’s one of the things that I’m hoping that you as a generation will bring to it.

You guys have to be sick of the constant fighting and squabbling that you see on television. Uh, and the, you know, you have the ability to, to demand something more. So I hope, uh, that you do that.

But, look, I, I think that, um, the greatest, uh, one of the great threats to, to, uh, who we are as a country are changes in the economy that, um, frankly, are nobody’s fault, it’s just the nature of progress. But technology has, uh, eliminated lots and lots of jobs. Um, the jobs, good jobs they’ve eliminated haven’t been replaced. Other jobs have been created but they require more education. Um, uh, and so we’ve seen wages flatten out. It’s harder to make a living, it’s harder to keep ahead of your expenses, um, and it’s harder to see the future for, uh, your kids. I think that we need a strategy to deal with that. And, and some of it has to do with we have to up our game on education, make sure that every single kid in this country gets the education that they, uh, deserve and can realize their full potential. We’ve got to make college affordable, uh, because there is a big difference between what your earning potential is if you go to college and if you don’t go to college. We have to use our community college system to train up people to do the jobs of the future in conjunction with business.

Uh, we need to lead the world in research and development. The stupidest thing that we’ve been doing lately is cutting back on research and development that lead to innovations. We’re the innovation leader. And a lot of it had, began with basic research that was funded by the government. And when we don’t fund that research we’re eating our seed corn.

We’ve made great progress in energy in the last few years. We’re on the road, on a path to become energy, uh, independent. But we also have to do it in a way that is, uh, cognizant of the, uh, of the environmental, uh, crisis that we have. Uh, and I know this is a debate with some, I, not with ninety-nine percent of scientists but with others. Uh, you know, we have a problem and this college [University of Central Missouri] exemplary for the way it’s approached, uh, their energy, uh, concern, their energy, uh, output to try and, uh, help that problem by becoming more green.

But we still have, we have great, we have, a bounty of natural gas has transformed our energy picture.  We have doubled the renewable energy, we have, we can make energy a real source of strength for us, uh, moving forward.

So there are things that we can do that will propel our economy, create good jobs and prepare people, uh, for those jobs so that we can maintain the quality of life that we want, uh, for ourselves.

I would love to see you guys work on all that. And it will require you working together, Republicans and Democrats, kind of sitting down there and looking at the facts and saying, what’s a practical answer to these questions. Instead of, uh, kind of beating each other up to try and win election.

[….]

[in response to a question] …Sadly, and this is one of the problems in our politics, it depends on what level you’re working at, but even, even in local races they’ve become expensive and so part of it involves raising money which I regret. I think this is one of the things I also hope you guys find a way to deal with way too much money in our politics. And it’s becoming, and we, by the way contributed to it in two thousand and eight because we made a decision, we were worried about these third parties spending money against us and we didn’t want to limit what we could spend to respond to them. And we, we, we went out of what was called the federal, uh, finance, presidential finance system so we wouldn’t be capped. And we ended up spending almost eight hundred million dollars, which was exponentially more than had ever been spent before. And it’ll never go back.

So we, we in, you know, unwittingly I think, uh, uh, were at least, I don’t know about unwittingly, but contributed, uh, to the problem. So money, uh, is a problem because that’s how we communicate, and television is expensive and, uh, all that stuff.

But, if you’re in a local community I mean I think you want to lay down roots and the point here is, and I want to leave this, uh, with you, is, uh, you’ll make your name by working on things that are, matter to people, that are important to people. Become leaders in your community. If you help, uh, solve, uh, problems in your community, if you help lift your local school systems, or make your communities, uh, or, or, or make your communities safer or, uh, or help bring better health facilities to your communities or deal with any number of issues that come up, um, you’re gonna be known to those people, um, uh, who you worked with and you’ll build a network. And that becomes a foundation and you build out, uh, from that.  Obama had a, had a base that he could build on. And then over time he got, uh, better known….

[….]

On the stage (from left to right) sign language interpreter, David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Senator Tom Harkin (D), Ruth Harkin, Governor Chet Culver (D), Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, Roxanne Conlin.

A television reporter doing a stand up before the start of the event. Note that they provided their own shade. Also note attire (jeans and tennis shoes) out of the camera’s view.

There were a large number of Democratic and progressive t-shirts worn by people attending – this one takes issue with Arizona’s SB 1070.

The volunteers helping to feed the crowd have the logistics of doing so down to a science. They are efficient and the food service is fast.

The dining tents are a must for any weather, rain or shine.

The media gathered and waited for the photo-op/press availability. And waited, and waited…

(from left to right) Governor Chet Culver (D), Senator Tom Harkin (D), David Axelrod, David Plouffe.

The guests at the grill. At one point several photographers stuck their cameras (and expensive telephoto lenses) in the other side of grill attempting to get shots through the grill. I kid you not. At one point during the press availability I was standing next to the grill – you could really feel the heat. My audio recorder picked of the Q and A, wind noise, and sizzling steaks…

(left to right, foreground) David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Senator Tom Harkin (D), Governor Chet Culver (D).

…David Axelrod: …Senator Harkin’s absolutely right, I remember. I don’t know who’s here from the Register, but the headline in the Des Moines Register about the third week of September, you can look it up in your archives, was Political Experts [inaudible] Vilsack Faces Impossible Odds. And we ended up winning that race by five points. He became the first Democratic governor in thirty-two years. and it just really speaks to what happens when people get engaged and start focusing on the choice. you know, Vice President Biden is fond of quoting [inaudible] White of Boston, the old Mayor of Boston, saying, don’t, don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. And for the next fifty days we’re gonna make sure that people are very focused on the choice, the choice here in Iowa, the choice around the country because there’s a very stark choice between a Democratic Party that’s trying to lift this country out of the disaster that was created by the last [inaudible] and the folks who want to take us right back to that disaster. And when people focus on that choice you’re gonna see a much different result and you’re gonna see more headline writers and more pundits have to scratch their head on the day after the election and say, why did I write that story…

David Plouffe: …This is gonna be a choice between two people, districts and states. I think that we can win that argument effectively because the Republican experiment is very recent in people’s minds. The Republican policies were the chief reason we face this recession. They wouldn’t have done the things we did to avert a great depression. And they are gonna be a party of and by the big special interests. We’re gonna win this by also increasing Democratic turnout. Right now Republicans are coming out [inaudible] in big numbers. I don’t think we should expect that to diminish. Some of them may be wearing tinfoil hats, but they’re coming out. And we need to get Democrats excited and enthused and that’s what we’re doing…Democratic enthusiasm is ticking up. People’s expression of likelihood of voting is picking up. We have the numbers here in Iowa and in so many states…

Question: Is the rest of the first term on hold if you get hammered in November?

David Axelrod: Well, first of all, we’re not gonna get hammered in, in November. I, I feel like the results are gonna be different than, than, you know, the prognostications now. You know, and I caution everybody not to call the race in the beginning of September.

But, you know, we are going to continue to move this country forward and fight the fights [inaudible] fought. We will work with anybody who wants to work with us, on either side of the aisle, to get that done.

Uh, you know, in the last twenty months the Republican Party has made a decision to sit on the sidelines and give us the entire responsibility and root for failure because they thought that was a prescription for a successful election. I think they’ll be disabused of that and perhaps everybody will come back to Washington after November with more of a sense of responsibility for the future of this country. We look forward to that….

Question: ….Could you help me with that disconnect with what you know on the ground versus what we’re reading in the paper?

David Plouffe: Well, listen, I’d say right now I think a lot of polls out there do show the Republicans at kind of their high water mark….a lot of the undecided independents are definitely getable for us. And you’ve got Republican enthusiasm at very high levels. And I think as a party we better not make that mistake to think that might abate. They’re coming out and they’re coming out in strong numbers. In state after state and district after district if we can just get Democratic vote totals up a little bit we’re gonna win some close races. And the good news is, you know, we’re not creating something out of whole cloth…. The most important thing in my view is, you know, a neighbor talking to a neighbor about the election. And that’s what we’re beginning to see in Iowa and elsewhere, is Democratic volunteerism picking up and Democrats saying they’re more likely to vote….

….So we’ve got to go out there and convince those Democrats of the stakes in this election, that there’s a [inaudible] choice, and if they don’t come out to vote they’re handing the keys back over to the folks that got us in this mess in the first place….

….Senator Tom Harkin (D): …I’ve thought a lot about this. Throughout history, throughout history those who have been opposed to progress have been imbued with a passionate intensity. Let me repeat that. Throughout history those who have been opposed to progress have had passionate intensity. What do I mean by that? A couple of weeks ago on of the Little Rock nine passed away. I was watching this and, and clips of these kids going into the school and the mobs around them, spitting at them, and how vicious they were. They had intensity. They were passionate. I think about George Wallace when he ran for president. They had passionate intensity. I even think about Goldwater. When he ran in sixty four, they were passionate. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice? They had passion. You know, groups can have passion. There were passionate people against the New Deal. The Father Coughlins and the Huey Longs and others. Throughout history this has been true. But these are the passions of the moment. What the Republicans are doing is they’re playing to those passions. Yes, there are some disconnects in our society. Yes, some people are out of work. We have been laying the groundwork under President Obama to move us into the future. The Republicans are taking advantage of this passion people have momentarily. I will tell you, I’ve been in this business a long time. I will trade passionate intensity for determination and commitment and a willingness to go out and…do that nitty gritty work. And that’s what we’re doing in Iowa. They can have the passion because their passion is opposed to progress. And in the final result people will get that…      

Francis Thicke, the Democratic candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.

Roxanne Conlin, the Democratic candidate challenging Chuck Grassley (r-what health care reform bill?), addresses the crowd.

Previously:

Iowa Road Trip! – the 2010 Harkin Steak Fry

Iowa Road Trip! – Interstate highway rest stops

Foreground, left to right: David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Senator Tom Harkin (D), and Governor Chet Culver (D) at the press availability at the the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa.

A sunny almost cloudless sky, temperature in the eighties, fifteen hundred Democrats, statewide candidates, Congressional candidates, good food, and plenty of good speechifying. That’s the Harkin Steak Fry we’ve come to know over the past few years.

We had good conversations with folks new to us and, believe it or not, we saw friends from last year’s event and caught up on each other’s activities over the past year.

We spoke at length with Francis Thicke, the Democratic candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. He had a thing or two to say about CAFOs (he’s written a book about agriculture in Iowa, he’s a farmer, and he has a PhD). We’re hoping the wind and crowd noise didn’t overwhelm the audio recording. That interview’s for you, hotflash.

This post courtesy of the public WiFi at an Iowa Department of Transportation highway rest stop.

More to follow as we sort through the hundreds of photographs and several hours of audio from the road trip.

It’s that time of year again. Blue Girl and I scored some media credentials so tomorrow we’ll be making the four hour drive from west central Missouri to the Warren County Fairgrounds in Indianola, Iowa for the 33rd Annual Harkin Steak Fry.

From 2009 – the entrance to the Harkin Steak Fry at the Warren County Fairgrounds in Indianola, Iowa.

The featured speakers this year are David Axelrod and David Plouffe.

In previous years:

(2009)

Senator Al Franken (D) at the 2009 Harkin Steak Fry – part 1

Senator Al Franken (D) at the 2009 Harkin Steak Fry – part 2

Senators Harkin (D) and Franken (D) in Indianola, Iowa – there will be a strong public option

The 2009 Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – photos

Before anyone gets a shovel and digs a grave for the Public Option, read this

We didn’t attend in 2008. We were covering other stuff in Missouri.

(2007) Our first ever media credential.

Road Trip! – The Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – What? No mud?

Road Trip! – The Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa – The speechifying

The weather is supposed to be fantastic. That’s a good thing because the event is held outdoors.

The Keith Olbermann show on Friday spotlighted the Americans for Prosperity memo that coaches AFP adherents in tactics for disrupting town halls. Guest host Richard Wolffe offered friendly advice to Democratic Congressmen planning to offer town halls during the August recess:

Those angry protestors who will disrupt your attempts to talk with your voters, and trust me, they will, are being coordinated and coached by industry funded rightwing operatives. … And there’s a good chance they don’t even live in your district. One conservative front group is now busing people from all over the country to protest against Democratic members, a strategy endorsed by Republican Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas, who told Politico.com that the days of civil town halls are now over.

After covering the memo, Wolffe interviewed senior Obama aide David Axelrod and asked him a question I want answered: “Have you lost control of the framing of this debate?”

Axelrod’s answer dismayed me. He said they had not–and proceeded not to talk about framing at all.

I’ll tell you why I don’t think we’ve lost control of the debate. Because I think every month people are still paying their health care premiums, and they know that they’ve been going up ten percent a year. Every day, people are dealing with these growing out of pocket costs for their health care. Every day, small businesses are dropping people, large businesses are cutting back what they’re willing to cover for their employees. This is a problem that people live with every single day, and as a result, they want us to do something about it.

Excuse me, Mr. Axelrod. Although high health insurance premiums have certainly made health insurance reform necessary–and changing “health care reform” to “health insurance reform” is effective framing–that regrettable fact does not speak to Woolf’s question about framing. Y’all are doing a slipshod job in that department. Using the phrase health “insurance” reform is not, by itself, going to reverse the sagging poll numbers on the health care issue.

In part, the change is a hard sell because, despite the need for it, too many people–those on Medicare–already got theirs and thus fear change. Balloon Juice cites a study that says:

By a margin of three to one, 36% to 12%, adults 65 and older are more likely to believe healthcare reform will reduce rather than expand their access to healthcare.

John Cole’s comment on those stats is:

I read somewhere that the fact that our seniors are all covered by medicare really makes health care reform difficult. When the most reliable voting bloc already has their coverage paid for by the state, all the Republicans have to do is peel off a few other haves and convince the old folks that Obama wants to euthanize them.

I don’t know what the framing ought to be: “Medicare for those that want it,” maybe? I do know that the issue is crazy complex, and it’s not being sold convincingly–which is exponentially harder when the MSM doesn’t do its job: when it ignores what Americans for Prosperity is up to at town halls and when it fails to call Republicans out on their blatant euthanasia lies.

Our previous coverage of President Obama’s July 20, 2009 blogger conference call on health care reform:

The healthcare battle looms large

President Obama: health care reform – blogger conference call

President Obama: health care reform – blogger conference call – Q and A

Axelrod and DeParle: health care reform – blogger conference call – Q and A

After President Obama left the conference call his senior aides David Axelrod and Nancy-Ann Deparle continued to take questions from bloggers in on the call. This is the final portion of the transcript:

….Question: …You and the President both mentioned Senator DeMint’s comment about Waterloo. I’m actually watching the House Energy and Commerce Committee right now and it’s pretty clear that the Republicans there are doing everything they can to kill the bill. So, my question is, and there’s been a lot of talk, and there’s a lot of talk in Washington, you know, amongst the talking heads about how important bipartisanship is. When does bipartisanship become just, so, less of an issue and good policy becomes the driving force? And we, and we kind of get away from that talk about having to have a bipartisan bill if, if it means that, now that, especially now that we know the Republicans’ main agenda is to kill health care reform.

David Axelrod: Well look, uh, good policy has to ultimately be the driver here. And the, the President said he didn’t want to make the prefect the enemy of the good. But, uh, I don’t think, uh, we want to make, uh, uh, but, but we want a bill that’s good. We want a bill that addresses the fundamental issues that he raised, that I’ve raised, that Nancy-Ann has, uh, has raised. We, uh, so it has to meet certain standards. We, we would love to do that, it would be, uh, easier to do that with, uh, bipartisan support, but that, we’re not driven by the process, we’re driven by the outcome. And, uh, uh, we’re gonna do whatever is necessary to achieve the outcome that will bring real relief to the American people and will stabilize our health care system now and for, for, uh, years to come. And so, uh, you know, there are still, uh, uh, those in the other party who are, uh, perhaps to the consternation of some of their, uh, co.., peers who are, who are sitting in in good faith trying to, uh, work this through. And we want to, uh, uh, and we want to explore that, uh, thoroughly. Not everyone is following the admonition of Bill Kristol who said today that they should resist the, uh, temptation to be constructive or responsible and go for the kill. Uh, there are, there are those who actually want to be constructive and, uh, and responsible. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna explore that fully. But rest assured that ultimately, uh, the goal here is to get, um, some fundamental reform for the American people to get them out from the yoke of this ever increasing burden and to, to rescue, uh, our, our, our, our businesses from that and the government from that. So, um, you know, we’ll do what’s necessary to achieve that goal…

….Question: …Do you think it was a mistake to back off and sort of allow Congress to take the lead on health care reform as long as you did?

David Axelrod: No, Oliver, I, I, it’s a good question. I think the answer is no. I know the answer is no because we’re closer today than we’ve ever been to actually achieving this. You know, people have tried, uh, uh, in the past to achieve comprehensive, uh, health care reform that would, uh, make, uh, quality affordable health care available to, uh, all Americans and bring the kind of reforms we’re talking about. And, uh, uh, and, and they, they haven’t gotten as far. So, you know, we, we have some agreement on, you know, probably seventy percent, uh, of the, uh, of the issues here. And I think partly that’s because we didn’t arrive on Capitol Hill in January with stone tablets and ask people to, uh, uh, you know, uh, pledge fidelity to them. Uh, we’ve allowed the process to work. But now the President, uh, has, uh, you know, we’ve reached another phase of this debate. The President is obviously deeply, uh, involved and, uh, and, and will be, uh, to the end. And I will say that Nancy-Ann and her team have been working closely with members of Congress from the beginning. So it isn’t as, as, as if, uh, we haven’t, uh, uh, been, uh, an integral part of the process, it’s just that we haven’t tried to dictate the outcome from the beginning. I’m quite certain that had we done that we would have not ended up, uh, in a position to accomplish, uh, what I think we’re in a position to accomplish now.

….Question: …Here in Pennsylvania, uh, we’re trying to get a single payer plan bill passed in the state level. We have the governor’s [garbled] he’d sign it. Uh, being from Philadelphia, uh, [garbled] you have a, uh, certain empathy for us in Pennsylvania. Since single payer isn’t on the table on the national level will the White House support our efforts here in Pennsylvania to, uh, do a model on the state level?

Nancy-Ann DeParle: Well, uh, in fact Governor Rendell was just down here last week, uh, meeting with folks, uh, here at the White House. And, um, I, we, he’s a great friend of, of this administration and we work closely with him. You know, I think we have the same goal, which is we want to get people covered, we want to lower costs, we want to increase quality. We want to get out of this, this, uh, system we’re in now where people are, are paying more and getting less every year. So, uh, we want to work with you to move forward in doing that and I think we’re just not about drawing lines in the sand at this point. That is not the focus, as you say, single payer is not the focus of the debate in Washington, but, um, you know, it’s good to hear you’re moving forward in Pennsylvania. We know you have, uh, a problem there with, uh, people being able to afford, uh, coverage. We know you have a problem of, of, frankly, monopolies with insurance companies ’cause I’ve looked at the data about that. So, um, you know, good luck to you and we’d love to work with you.

David Axelrod: And I think it is a reflection, uh, of the, uh, seriousness that I think people all over this country feel, uh, about this problem. It just sim.., it’s simply not, something that we can’t delay and defer for another, uh, another fifteen years, another generation. I, I don’t think the system can tolerate that. Uh, we are on a, you know, an unsustainable path. So, it’s not surprising that states have taken up, uh, the initiate because there hasn’t been, uh, leadership from Washington. Well we’re, we’re, uh, trying to provide that leadership and, and solve a problem that’s been deferred for far too long.

….Question: …I just wanted to first thank you guys for doing this and, uh, second say please do it more….I’m wondering if, uh, the President would veto any health care bill that doesn’t include a public option. Is, is that something that, uh, you’ll be willing to [garbled]?

David Axelrod: Well, first of all, uh, let me, uh, return the thanks for what you guys do every day, uh, to keep the dialog going in this country and to, uh, help involve people and keep ’em, uh, up to date and, uh, to give people a platform, uh, uh, to express themselves on, uh, these issues.

The President feels very, very strongly that a, uh, a public option within the health insurance exchange will help, uh, create competition and, uh, will create, uh, uh, will help keep in, insurance companies honest and that will rebound to the benefit of, uh, consumers. Uh
, we expect that, uh, the bill he signs will include, uh, include, uh, a public, uh, choice. We have not, uh, uh, we’ve not, uh, uh, been wielding, uh, the big, uh, veto pen threat, uh, as yet because, uh, uh, we want to see how this whole thing unfolds. But I think he could have been more, uh, clearer, uh, about his, uh, his feeling that this would be an important part of a reform package. And nothing has changed.

….Question: …Last week, uh, six U.S. senators sent a letter to Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell stating a commitment to health care reform but asking for additional time. Uh, as this process moves forward how can the American people separate those who are making this commitment in god faith from those who are only promoting delay?

David Axelrod: Well, I, I, you know, and there’s no, there’s no doubt that, uh, uh, there are those who, who, who, uh, are, uh, asking, uh, for that in good faith. Uh, but, you know the answer, the respectful answer is that, uh, that this issue has been, uh, talked to death, not just for the last six months, but for, for decades. Uh, and, uh, we’re circling around the same issues that people have always, uh, that people have known for a long time would frame, uh, this debate. And I, I think if, if anyone needs any, just to repeat what I said earlier, if anybody needs any, um, demonstration, uh, of why, uh, uh, it’s important to move with some dispatch is the fact that those who want to stop this for political reasons are counting on a delay in order to, uh, um, muster, uh, greater, uh, lobbying efforts, greater misinformation, uh, campaigns. This is how the special interests have killed health care reform time and again and we’re not going to, uh, you know, we don’t want to walk down that same dark alley. Uh, and so we’re fighting, uh, um, uh, you know we’re fighting very hard to get this done. I’d say one other thing. Um, I suggest that anyone, uh, Republican or Democrat, who is arguing for delay, um, should, uh, check, uh, their mail, as I’m sure they do, as the President does every day, and read the letters from people who, some of whom have insurance, uh, and yet, uh, uh, are, uh, you know, are, are either not, not able to get the care they need or are, are being crushed by the cost of it, or the many who don’t, people who have pre-existing conditions and can’t get coverage. Uh, for example, people who have lost their jobs and are dumped into a private market that is way overpriced that they can’t afford. Uh, those people don’t have time. Those people are waiting for us, uh, to act and I think they have a sense that, uh, delay may be not for a matter of months, but for a matter of years if we don’t act now. So, I think it’s time to seize the moment and, uh, the President is gonna be urging that from now, uh, uh, until we get this done.

Thanks everybody for participating. Look forward to talking to you again.

Nancy-Ann DeParle: Thanks for all you’re doing….

Operator: That does conclude our conference for today…

Our previous coverage of President Obama’s blogger conference call on health care reform:

The healthcare battle looms large

President Obama: health care reform – blogger conference call

President Obama: health care reform – blogger conference call – Q and A

After President Obama left the conference call his senior aides David Axelrod and Nancy-Ann Deparle continued to take questions from bloggers in on the call. Our very own Blue Girl got in a question (below the fold):

….Question: …Our readers are very community oriented and very supportive of the President and they’ll want to know what they can personally do to help insure health care reform happens in the House and Senate.

David Axelrod: You know obviously we’re eager to spread the word. I mean one of the frustrating things about this, uh, uh, enterprise is that, uh, a lot of the coverage focuses on, uh, kind of the trees and not the forest. Uh, you heard the President articulate what his vision is and where he’s driving in terms of, uh, health reform. He, he defined it, uh, well I think, uh, in this conversation and, uh, and I think laid out the parameters that, uh, are important to him. I think for you guys to spread the word on that, uh, would be very, very important. We’re after health, uh, insurance reform, health care reform that will benefit all Americans, uh, folks who have insurance and have seen their premiums, uh, double over the last decade and have seen, uh, uh, health, uh, care, uh, premiums, uh, rise at three times the rate of wages. Uh, and who are increasingly finding it difficult to, uh, maintain [garbled]..I saw today, uh, uh, Mr. Steele say, uh, that, uh, under the Obama plan people would pay more for less. That’s exactly what’s happening every single year. People are paying more money for their health care and they’re getting less, uh, for it as deductibles rise, out of pocket costs, uh, rise. That’s exactly what we’re trying to address. Uh, and, uh, as well as deal with the issue of the uninsured and deal with the issue of the underinsured and people who, um, uh, have pre-existing conditions or loo…or have lost their job or changing jobs. These folks need some security and some stability. And that’s what this, that’s what this effort is about. And, uh, we want to make sure that people understand what it is that we’re fighting for and why it’s so important. And so to the extent that you can enlist people to spread the word, uh, and, uh, to mobilize folks, uh, to speak to their representatives in Congress and, uh, let them know, uh, that now’s the time. Uh, we saw, and I’ll yield the floor to, uh, Nancy-Ann here, but, uh,, we saw, uh, you know, over the weekend, uh, Senator DeMint, uh, say that the, you know, the strategy is to, uh, delay, uh, this process long enough so that they can, uh, kill it, uh, so that, uh, they, they, they said it could be Obama’s Waterloo, we can, uh, we can break him with this. Well the point is that there are millions of Americans who are being broken every single day. Uh, or, or every single year I should say, by, uh, uh, by, uh, climbing costs, uh, of health care. And that’s what we’re concerned about and that’s what we want to address. Do, do you want to add?…

…Nancy-Ann DeParle: No, I think your answer is right on point. And thank you for asking. We, we need your help to, uh, make sure that everyone knows what the President is fighting for here and that it has to happen now. And we, we appreciate everything you’re doing….

….Question: [Blue Girl!] …Uh, actually that’s They gave us a republic dot com. But anyway, uh, my question is about provider shortages. I’m a lab professional. I’ve spent more than twenty years on trauma teams and the fact that I’m still the young one speaks for itself. Uh, yeah, we’re, it, access doesn’t matter if you don’t have a doctor to see.  So is there any op.., any chance that we might, uh, see some training programs that are maybe tied in with Americorps or something? Or something like the military does now with ROTC and medical schools to staff, uh, military hospitals? Uh, [garbled], you know, to get people trained and on the job. The nursing shortage alone is a nightmare.

Nancy-Ann DeParle: Yes and [Blue Girl] thank you for what you’re doing and for your, your serving as a health [crosstalk]…

Question: Oh I’m, I’m retired. [laugh] And I was still the young one when I retired.

Nancy-Ann DeParle: The President spent some time today at Children’s, uh, National Medical Center here in D.C and met with nurses and physician assistants and doctors and, and talked about, uh, the struggles that families are facing in, in getting adequate care. And the emergency room there he, um, he was talking about the fact that they now have eighty-five thousand people, I think, a year, visits a year in their emergency room, up from fifty thousand. So we see the shortage, we see the need for more health professionals. In fact, one of the first things the President did, uh, was to, in the recovery act, uh, uh, add some additional funding, a substantial amount of additional funding that hasn’t been seen in a long time to the National Health Service Corp to train, uh, folks who will become health professionals in under served areas of the country. And we know that’s just the start of what is needed and in the health reform bill the House is, uh, doing right now they do have some authorizations for more funding for training.

I like your idea about trying to figure out a way to, uh, one thing that we’ve talked about is there a way to, to, uh, work with the returning, uh, veterans and those who have medical training, uh, and try to make sure that they can be, uh, plugged in to the, to the system and get jobs doing, uh, the work that they have been trained to do and which we need them doing. So, we’re looking for any and all ideas like that to make sure that we have adequate, uh, numbers of professionals out there. And appreciate your help in getting us new ideas….

….Question: …What’s your biggest concern about the current state of the debate? What’s your biggest fear in, in, in that way? What could we help do?

David Axelrod: [garbled] I, I think, uh, I, I appreciate the question and I, and I, uh, uh, you know I think I began to get at that, uh, a second ago. You know here in Washington, uh, the President always likes to say they sc.., you know they, they, they have a scorekeeper’s mentality. It’s all about who’s up and who’s down and, uh, people view this as a, kind of a, uh, uh, a game. And, uh, they tend to focus on, um, uh, uh, on, ss.., you know, uh, on the trees, as I said, rather than the forest. And I think, um, what we’re what we’re trying to stress is that, you know, the, the other side is using a tactic, uh, uh, of a, or opponents of this, of fear that change is frightening and the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. Well the fact is that, uh, what we have right now is unsustainable and that, you know, we want to communicate that that, uh, the reason it’s essential that we act now is that, uh, we can’t go decade after decade with health premiums doubling, with out of pocket costs, uh, growing, uh, uh, by a third. We can’t go with ten or twelve or fourteen thousand people a day losing their health, uh, uh, coverage. There’s an enormous price to be paid, human price, for inaction, uh, now. And we have a health care system right now that works, uh, well for, uh, uh, insurance companies and drug companies, but not so well for, um, individual Americans who, who are, are just getting crushed by the cost. Not so well for b
usinesses, small in particular, but also large. And we’re on an unsustainable path in terms of cost to the government. Uh, and we have to address these things. So, the thing you can communicate is this sense of urgency, uh, uh, that, uh, that we, that we have [garbled] that the program that we ult.., that the President will sign will address these issues, will give people some, uh, security, will have long overdue insurance, uh, reforms, and will make, uh, make the whole system work better, uh, give more choice in certain, more competition for consumers, more transparency. Uh, will do the things that are necessary to really bring about health care reform….