Politico: Obama Dramatically Revealed His Plan for Universal Health Care... Because He Had Been Invited to a Health Care Forum and Had Nothing to Say

Dave's Too-Early MNF Thread Is Below.

The thing is, when he announced this, he knew nothing about health care and in fact only agreed to say this last minute because otherwise he'd've had nothing to say at all.

So he decided to mask his complete ignorance in audacity.

Soon-to-be-candidate Obama, then an Illinois senator, was thinking about turning down an invitation to speak at a big health care conference sponsored by the progressive group Families USA [in January 2007], when two aides, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau, hit on an idea that would make him appear more prepared and committed than he actually was at the moment.

Why not just announce his intention to pass universal health care by the end of his first term?…

“We needed something to say,” recalled one of the advisers involved in the discussion. “I can’t tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good. So they just kind of hostaed it on their own. It just happened. It wasn’t like a deep strategic conversation.”…

The candidate jumped at it. He probably wasn’t going to get elected anyway, the team concluded. Why not go big?

Here it is, fellas: The Origin Story of Captain Bullshit.

And meanwhile, the average family now has to pay $7,450 more per year for health insurance, do to no other reason besides the "Affordable" Care Act.

It was one of candidate Obama’s most vivid and concrete campaign promises. Forget about high minded (some might say high sounding) but gauzy promises of hope and change. This candidate solemnly pledged on June 5, 2008: “In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year….. We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States.” Unfortunately, the experts working for Medicare’s actuary have (yet again[1]) reported that in its first 10 years, Obamacare will boost health spending by “roughly $621 billion” above the amounts Americans would have spent without this misguided law.

Avik Roy's figure is his own estimate, but on Special Report tonight, Jim Engel interviewed a family of four whose health insurance had nearly tripled in cost from $333 (or thereabouts) to $996 per month.

Which is somewhere about $7,000+ per year.

Oh, and the Washington Post wakes up and smells the Restricted Access to Health Care Compelled by ObamaCare.

From California to Illinois to New Hampshire, and in many states in between, insurers are driving down premiums by restricting the number of providers who will treat patients in their new health plans.

When insurance marketplaces open on Oct. 1, most of those shopping for coverage will be low- and moderate-income people for whom price is paramount. To hold down costs, insurers say, they have created smaller networks of doctors and hospitals than are typically found in commercial insurance. And those health care providers will, in many cases, be paid less than what they have been receiving from commercial insurers.

Some consumer advocates and health care providers are increasingly concerned. Decades of experience with Medicaid, the program for low-income people, show that having an insurance card does not guarantee access to specialists or other providers.

Consumers should be prepared for “much tighter, narrower networks” of doctors and hospitals, said Adam M. Linker, a health policy analyst at the North Carolina Justice Center, a statewide advocacy group.

Old and Busted: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor

New Hotness: If you like your doctor, go &%$* yourself.

And, Open Thread.

posted by Ace at 08:15 PM

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