http://thepage.time.com/transcript-obama-in-abcs-health-care-special/###
Q And we welcome you to this special edition of Nightline. Just to tell you where we are, we're in the East Room of the White House with the President and 164 invited guests here who represent all different perspectives on the subject of health care reform. And we have questions for the President -- call this "Prescription for America." We had an hour there on prime time earlier before your local news, but the President is going to stay with us. And we have more questions, and there are some critical things that we did not get to in that hour. Most critically of all, in talking about health care reform, there's the very controversial subject of whether there needs to be a public option, whether there needs to be government-run insurance as one of the options to get more people insured, and for the general nature of health care reform.
Your critics on the Republican side of the Senate Finance Committee wrote you a letter and said at a time when major government programs like Medicare and Medicare are already on a path to fiscal insolvency, creating a brand new program will not only worsen our long-term financial outlook but also negatively impact American families who enjoy private coverage for their insurance. What do you say to them?
THE PRESIDENT: They're wrong. (Laughter.) And so let's just explain, as clearly as possible, what we're talking about. What we want to do, as I said before, was set up a health care exchange, or a marketplace, essentially giving the American people the same kind of options that members of Congress do or federal employees do. There is a range of options that are available. Private insurers will participate. You will be able to do some one-stop shopping and compare all the different plans, what kind of benefits they provide, what are the deductibles -- figure out what's best for you.
Now, what we've said is, as one option among multiple options, should be a public option where we set up a insurer that isn't profit-driven, that can keep administrative costs low, and that can serve as competition to the private insurers. Now, what -- the argument that's been made has been that somehow the public option will crowd out private insurers.
Q It's not a level playing field.
THE PRESIDENT: And that's the argument, that it's not a level playing field. And what we've said is, it wouldn't be a level playing field if the government can just print money and subsidize that public plan so that premiums are a lot lower than costs and doctors are getting reimbursed a lot lower than they do in the private sector. Well, that's true. It also wouldn't be a very good plan.
But what we've said is that we can set up a public option in which they're collecting premiums just like any private insurer, that doctors are reimbursed at a fair rate, but because administrative costs are lower, we are able to keep private insurers honest in terms of the growth of costs of premiums and deductibles and so forth.
Now, you'll always hear folks say that the free market can do it better; government can't run anything. And what I say is, well, if that's the case, nobody is going to choose the public option. So the private insurers, who I think are very confident that they're providing a good service and a good product to their customers, should feel confident that they can compete with just one other option.
A lot of the objection to the public option idea is not practical, it's ideological. People don't like the idea of government being involved. But keep in mind that the two areas where government is involved -- are involved in health care -- Medicare and the VA -- actually, there's pretty high satisfaction among the people who participate.
###
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
