In 2003, then Senator Barack Obama told an audience, “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal healthcare program,” though he warned that we might not “get there immediately” because Democrats had to first take back the Senate, the House and the White House.
At a rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 14, 2009, Obama subtly changed his tune. In May he told the audience, “So, what I’ve said is, let’s set up a system where if you already have healthcare through your employer and you’re happy with it, you don’t have to change doctors, you don’t have to change plans, nothing changes. If you don’t have healthcare, or you’re highly unsatisfied with your healthcare, let’s give you choices, let’s give you options including a public program…”
So, why the flip flop from claiming he’s for socialized healthcare in 2003 to offering “choices” in 2009? Well, something he said in the interim between 2003 and 2009 explains that pretty well. In 2007, Obama admitted that there will have to be some sort of “transition” phase between the current system of employer paid healthcare through private insurance and a socialized healthcare plan administrated completely by the federal government.
In 2007, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Obama revealed his idea that we’d see this “transition” period on the way to adopting single payer, nationally socialized healthcare. “But I don’t think we are going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately,” he said, “There’s gonna be potentially some transition process I can envision a decade out, or fifteen or twenty years out…” that the universal healthcare system can take over from the current system.
Yet, today Obama is going around telling the nation that he has no intention of getting rid of anyone’s private healthcare insurance and that he is not for a single payer plan. He is selling this as “choice” and “competition” but it appears that he has no desire to foster any such competition or choice. He wants to eliminate that choice completely if his “transition” talk is any indication.
So, why the deceit in this debate? Why won’t Obama simply come right out and say that he wants a socialized healthcare system to replace our current choices? One can only imagine that it’s because it doesn’t sell well, that the idea of socialized national healthcare scares voters and makes them shy from such a plan. So, there has to be deceit in the debate or the ultimate goal cannot be achieved.
Obama does not seem to want to level with the American voters about what his ultimate goals really are.
(Source of video: verumserum.com)
Tags: Barack Obama, dailydose, feature, single payer, video
