Facts *are* stubborn things

The White House is serious about health care reform. They are so serious that they have asked anyone who sees “disinformation” being spread that might cause Americans to doubt that President Obama’s agenda for health care reform is good for the country to report it to the White House by emailing it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

In a blog post entitled “Facts Are Stubborn Things,” White House staff says:

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to “uncover” the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

…

For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them.

What the blog does not note is that White House officials also said that the President’s remarks — specifically his remarks on whether or not you will be able to keep your insurance plan or doctor — shouldn’t be taken literally.

And while they reassert that the president is not pushing for a single-payer system (anymore), many of his supporters are. From the Heritage Foundation:

• Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) at a Health Care for America Now rally: “And next to me was a guy from the insurance company who argued against the public health insurance option, saying it wouldn’t let private insurance compete. That a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer. My single-payer friends, he was right. The man was right.”
• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told Single Payer Action: “I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single-payer and that is the best way to reach single-payer. Saying you’ll do nothing till you get single-payer is a sure way never to get it. … I think the best way we’re going to get single-payer, the only way, is to have a public option and demonstrate the strength of its power.”
• Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein at the Democratic National Convention last year: “They have a sneaky strategy, the point of which is to put in place something that over time the natural incentives within its own market will move it to single-payer.”
• Noble Prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman: “[T]he only reason not to do [single-payer] is that politically it’s hard to do in one step…You’d have to convince people completely give up the insurance they have, whereas something that lets people keep the insurance they have but then offers the option of a public plan, that may evolve into single-payer.”

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.