The Social Medicine Portal

Obama Questioned on Single Payer

The following news (brought to my attention by my dear friend Cristina), from today’s Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now radio show, provides a good exercise in critical thinking: finding the flaws in president Obama’s argument (invalid inferences, false assumptions, etc) that ” it is best to build on the health care system we have”, rather than presumably adopt too radical solutions like single payer (I myself could find four flaws in two minutes! For a fuller argument for why it is misguided at best to build on “the health care system we have” read “Not Change We Can Believe In“).

According to the president, “the vast majority” of Americans get coverage from their jobs, and presumably are satisfied with it.

Another interesting accompanying headline is “Health Industry Says Obama Overstated Pledge to Cut Costs” (surprise surprise!). It looks like, after all, companies “never agreed to specific yearly cuts, but only vague voluntary goals”.

For both clips, click here.

Obama Questioned on Single Payer

At a town hall-style event in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Thursday, local resident Linda Allison asked President Obama why the White House and the Democratic-led Congress have ruled out single payer.

Linda Allison: “My question is, so many people go bankrupt using their credit cards to pay for healthcare. Why have they taken single payer off the plate? And why is Senator Baucus on the Finance Committee discussing healthcare, when he has received so much money from the pharmaceutical companies? Isn’t it a conflict of interest?”

President Obama: “If I were starting a system from scratch, then I think that the idea of moving towards a single-payer system could very well make sense. That’s the kind of system that you have in most industrialized countries around the world. The only problem is that we’re not starting from scratch. We have historically a tradition of employer-based healthcare. And although there are a lot of people who are not satisfied with their healthcare, the truth is, is that the vast majority of people currently get healthcare from their employers, and you’ve got this system that’s already in place. We don’t want a huge disruption as we go into healthcare reform, where suddenly we’re trying to completely reinvent one-sixth of the economy.”

Obama did not address the second part of Linda Allison’s question about Democratic Senator Max Baucus, who has excluded single-payer advocates from Senate Finance Committee hearings. Allison says she was partly inspired to ask the question after viewing Democracy Now!‘s coverage on Wednesday of single-payer advocates who disrupted Baucus’s hearing.