Lying in Portsmouth: ‘You can keep your doctor’
USA Today included a sidebar along with its reporting on the health care town halls held Aug. 11, in which the paper calls out President Obama for claiming that under his health care reform plans, Americans will be able to keep their doctors.
Here’s what the president said:
Now, let me just start by setting the record straight on a few things I’ve been hearing out here — (laughter) — about reform. Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
Here’s what USA Today says about that statement:
Not necessarily. In an analysis of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that 10 million workers could lose employer-provided benefits and would have to find other insurance.
And actually, other estimates put that number much higher. Here’s what Heritage had to say:
This statement is also plainly false. Again, as demonstrated above, the true purpose of Obama’s public option is to move Americans out of their private coverage and into government run health care. Independent, non-partisan analysis from the Lewin Group has confirmed the House bill, H.R. 3200, will do exactly that: About 88.1 million workers would see their current private, employer-sponsored health plan go away and would be shifted to the public plan.
Sources:
The White House, Aug. 11, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM TOWN HALL
USA Today, Aug. 12, 2009
Obama battles health care ‘chatter’
Heritage.org, Aug. 12, 2009
