Obama and Single Payer System

When it comes to health care, what's Obama's goal?

He's made it clear in the past. Again and again, Obama has said he wants a government takeover of our health care system.

He's denying that now because Americans in growing numbers are against it. I, too, don't want the process of receiving medical care to be something akin to a visit to the DMV.

Obama's denials about a single payer system are in vain. They only reveal him to be deceptive and dishonest. He can't erase what he's said on the record, repeatedly.

Fact: Obama believes in leading the country toward a single payer system. A government takeover of health care is Obama's long-term goal.

Video.

August 4, 2007

OBAMA: This is a two trillion part of our economy. And it is my belief that, not just politically but also economically, it's better for us to start getting a system in place, a universal health care system signed into law by the end of my first term as president, and build off that system to further, to make it more rational.

...By the way, Canada did not start off immediately with a single payer system. They had a similar transition step.


New Hampshire Public Radio
November 21, 2007

OBAMA: It's a transitional system building on the existing systems that we have.

QUESTION: Transitional to what?

OBAMA: Well, transitional hopefully because the system currently is so, such a patchwork of inefficiency that over time I would want to see Medicaid, Medicare, the children's health insurance program, SCHIP -- all those integrated more effectively.


April 3, 2007

OBAMA: Let's say that I proposed a plan that moved to a single payer system. Let's say Medicare Plus. It'd be essentially everybody can buy into Medicare for example.

...Transitioning a system is a very difficult and costly and lengthy enterprise. It's not like you can turn on a switch and you go from one system to another. So it's possible that upfront you would need not just, I mean, you might need an additional $90 or $100 billion a year.


March 24, 2007

OBAMA: But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out.


January 27, 2005

OBAMA: There's no denying that part of the solution in the health care arena, as we transition and deal with the legacy systems that we've inherited, will probably require some additional money.

If Obama gets his way, we will be transitioning to a single payer system.

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More from Obama on his vision for health care in America.

That was then...

OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.

This is now.

OBAMA: I have not said that I was a single payer supporter....

Lies.