This "we gotta fix health care to save the economy" is so bogus I can't understand how it gets any traction.
Obama: We Are Out of Money Now (Updated)
PATTERICO
By DRJ
Barack Obama's Memorial Day message to Americans:
>>> "SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?
OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.
So we've got a short-term problem, which is we had to spend a lot of money to salvage our financial system, we had to deal with the auto companies, a huge recession which drains tax revenue at the same time it's putting more pressure on governments to provide unemployment insurance or make sure that food stamps are available for people who have been laid off.<<<
So we have a short-term problem and we also have a long-term problem. The short-term problem is dwarfed by the long-term problem. And the long-term problem is Medicaid and Medicare. If we don't reduce long-term health care inflation substantially, we can't get control of the deficit."
Obama knows his priorities. Now that he's "fixed" the economy, he's moving on to healthcare.
UPDATE: Here is C-Span's transcript of the full interview. I notice Obama again repeated his claim that health care providers have committed to reduce costs by 1.5% a year (page 5):
>>> "And if – one of the very promising areas that we saw was these insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, all these stakeholders coming together, committing to me that they would reduce costs by 1.5 percent per year."<<<
Of course, these same providers claim Obama "substantially overstated" their promise to control costs … but the more Obama says this, the more it will become the narrative they can't escape. Link |
