President Obama: Here’s Your Evidence for Why Republicans are Opposed to Your Public Plan

Morgen

Speaking at a town hall meeting today in Green Bay, WI , President Obama continued his propaganda campaign for his health reform plan. As has been noted numerous times on this blog, the key political battle over healthcare reform is whether the so-called public plan “option” will be included in the final legislation. President Obama addressed this topic today and expressed some confusion as to why Republicans are so opposed to the public plan. Watch:


According to President Obama, “It’s not clear that [Republican opposition] is based on any evidence”. I’m not exactly sure what sort of “evidence” the President has in mind. But for starters, how about listening to what the architect and chief advocate of the public plan strategy had to say about his plan in 2007:


The man at the podium is Jacob Hacker, a former Yale and now Berkeley political scientist who created the public plan strategy and has been shopping it in various incarnations to Democratic candidates since 2001. The reporter asking the ever so insightful question is Robert Kuttner, from the liberal publication The American Prospect. Hacker, as you may recall, was featured in an earlier video we produced, The Public Plan Deception. Just in case President Obama is in need of any more “evidence”, here it is once again on You Tube.

There you go Mr. President…in your own words. And Jacob Hacker’s. And Jan Schakowsky’s. I have video of Senator Russ Feingold and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying much the same thing…in case you need any more “evidence”.

Just one final point about all this gamesmanship on the part of the President. How exactly is it that President Obama, who has said that if he were starting from scratch he’d prefer a single-payer system (i.e. one with NO competition), now has the audacity to advocate for a public plan option based on the fact that it will provide MORE competition. He is either being totally disingenuous in making this argument, or what he is actually saying is that there is only one “competitor” he really cares about. The U.S. Government.

John Adds: Here’s HCAN spokesman John Gaudette saying the same thing last month, i.e. the public option is single-payer in waiting. Of course to get there you have to run private insurers out of business, but as Gaudette says “the insurance industry is the enemy.” I’d call that evidence.