President Barack Obama opened his press conference today with statements on three issues: Iran, the energy bill, and health care.
On health care, Obama claimed: “It will not add to our deficits over the next decade.”
As he has in the past, Obama claimed: “There’s no doubt that we must preserve what’s best about our health care system, and that means allowing Americans who like their doctor and their health care plans to keep them.”
On Iran, Major Garrett of FoxNews noted that Obama was now “appalled” and asked: “What took you so long?”
Obama responded that his comments on Iran were consistent from the start.
UPDATE: Obama was asked whether he could keep his promise that people could keep their health plans and their doctors. When Obama first dodged the question, a follow-up tried to pin him down. Obama’s response:
When I say if you have your plan, ah, and you like it and your doctor has a plan — or or you have a doctor and you like your doctor that you don’t have to change plans, what I’m saying is the government is not going to make you change plans under health reform.
Translation:
Under Obama’s health care plan, the government will not order you to change doctors or change plans, but some employers would change plans even without health care reform. The unstated assumption appears to be that, by changing the health care market, health reform will cause some employers to change plans. Thus, if you like your doctor or your health care plan, health care reform may cause you to lose them, but they won’t be taken away by government fiat, rather by competition, which is usually good.
One additional note: as I was perhaps the first commentator to point out after the election, Obama picked at least his first few questioners by looking at his notes, sometimes not knowing where the reporter was seated. And the questioners appeared to know that they would be called on. This behavior appeared to be consistent with reports from last fall that the Obama press people discuss with reporters ahead of time whether they will be called on:
The press corps, most of us, don’t even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who’ve been advised they will be called upon that day.
Comments are closed.