Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 15)
13 August
We continue to review the President’s Portsmouth, New Hampshire remarks on health care:
THE PRESIDENT: A single-payer plan would be a plan like Medicare for all, or the kind of plan that they have in Canada, where basically government is the only person — is the only entity that pays for all health care. Everybody has a government-paid-for plan, even though in, depending on which country, the doctors are still private or the hospitals might still be private. In some countries, the doctors work for the government and the hospitals are owned by the government. But the point is, is that government pays for everything, like Medicare for all. That is a single-payer plan.
I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter because, frankly, we historically have had a employer-based system in this country with private insurers, and for us to transition to a system like that I believe would be too disruptive. So what would end up happening would be, a lot of people who currently have employer-based health care would suddenly find themselves dropped, and they would have to go into an entirely new system that had not been fully set up yet. And I would be concerned about the potential destructiveness of that kind of transition.
All right? So I’m not promoting a single-payer plan.
This is interesting – he seems not to object to government being “the only entity that pays for all health care” as a desirable endstate. The only concern he raises is that the transition would be disruptive. He also does not say that he opposes single-payer, merely that he is not promoting it.
Other posts in this series:
- The President’s overpromise that everyone can keep their health plan
- Putting the government in charge of your health insurance
- Waiting in line
- Government-mandated benefits
- Preventive care does not save money (in the aggregate)
- The House bill would increase short-term, 10th year, and long-term budget deficits
- The President was incorrect — AARP opposes the bill
- The bills would take Medicare savings needed for solvency and spend them on a new entitlement
- Medicare is not a good example of government-run health care because Medicare is fiscally unsustainable
- Even if the public option drops out of legislation, other parts of these bills would put private insurance under government control
- The President says the public option will keep private insurers honest at the same time he proposes cutting payments to private insurers competing with the Medicare public option
- The pending bills would move more cost-benefit decisions from insurers to people chosen by the government
- Guaranteed renewal and guaranteed issue
- The President says “we may be able to get even more than” the $80 B of budgetary savings that the pharmaceutical industry thought was a ceiling promised by the White House.
Related Posts
(best matches are listed first)- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 17)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 18)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 19)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 20)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 14)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 10)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 16)
- Debating the President’s Portsmouth pitch (part 11)
PRESIDENT says " So what would end up happening would be, a lot of people who currently have employer-based health care would suddenly find themselves dropped, and they would have to go into an entirely new system that had not been fully set up yet. And I would be concerned about the potential destructiveness of that kind of transition"__ Doesn't the house plan HR3200 have the potential to do just that anyway? Would it not be cheaper for some employers, or even most to go ahead and opt for the public option? Pages 149- 150 talks about the payroll taxes for those employers who don't offer the public option. It runs from 2 to 8% tax on payroll on top of them paying premiums for their full and part time employees insurance. It states this tax will not be applied against the employee premiums. So doesn't make sound fiscal sense for a business just to opt for the public option? It would cheaper for them. The result being exactly what Obama says he "be concerned about" …"suddenly find(ing) themselves dropped " and the "potential destructiveness of that kind of transition"? I'm I off base here?
Oops! Am I off base here?
This is not about health care. It is about the same thing as gun control, which is not about guns. They are both about control and I am dead set against more government intervention in my life.
"So I'm not promoting a single-payer plan."
He sounds like Hillary during one of those "Democrat debates" where she said that NY Governor Spitzer was "filling a void" by giving illegal aliens driver's licenses since Comprehensive Immigration Reform wasn't passed. Sen Dodd immediately pounced on her for that, so she immediately quips "I just want to add I did not say that it should be done".
Speaking of Hillary and those debates, remember her taunts that the only true difference of opinion on issues between her and Obama was their position on health care reform: she wanted mandated coverage…and he didn't.
So he lied long enough to win and now she's in Africa getting dissed by a student reporter.