Obama Blows It 1
Apparently, he’s taking lessons from the Clinton campaign. From Fact Check dot org.
- Obama is being misleading when he says his proposal would “cover everyone.” It would make coverage available to all, but experts we consulted estimate that 15 million to 26 million wouldn’t take it up unless required to do so.
- Clinton stretches things a bit, too. Even her plan – which, unlike Obama’s, includes a mandate for individuals to get insurance – would leave out a million people or perhaps more, depending on how severe the penalties would be for those who don’t comply. She won’t say how her mandate would be enforced, but has said that she was open to the possibility of garnishing wages.
- Update, Feb. 15: A new Obama ad in Wisconsin misrepresents the words of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, falsely claiming he said the Obama plan produced greater savings than the Clinton plan.
- Experts also are skeptical of both candidates’ claims that their plans will reduce the cost of insurance for the typical family by $2,000 or more. ” I know zero credible evidence to support that conclusion,” says M.I.T’s Jonathan Gruber.
Behind the dueling ads there is a legitimate disagreement. Obama is reluctant to force people to buy health insurance they don’t want even if the government makes it available at a subsidized price. And Clinton says that any proposal that doesn’t aim to cover 100 percent of the uninsured would be “nibbled to death” by opponents.
No, I’m not changing my sidebar.
February 15, 2008 at 9:56 pm
If both of them weren’t so busy spending a couple of hundred million dollars on campaign advertising, they could actually do something productive like start a non-profit health insurance company that would undercut the competition with lower prices.