The White House Press Secretary, late last week, had this exchange with a venerable member of the press corps:
Helen Thomas: Why is the President against single-payer?
Robert Gibbs: The President doesn’t believe that’s the best way to achieve the goal of cutting costs and increasing access.
Early this week President Obama, in remarks on the occasion of his reversal of the Bush Administration ban on embryonic stem cell research:
President Obama: Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s also about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about letting scientists like those who are here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology. (Applause.)
When health policy researchers do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, they reveal a fact that many in Congress find especially inconvenient: private health insurance companies subtract enormous resources, and add nothing, when it comes to the care of patients. Single payer national health insurance will not only cut hundreds of billions of dollars in health costs annually but increase access more than any other proposal — it will include everyone.
The President and the Congress have launched a public discussion of health reform, in regional White House forums hosted by Governors, and also in congressional committees.
Mr. President: will you listen to the science, hear the facts — and rediscover single payer?
Attention Congress: our nation deserves a fair hearing of the evidence. Will you allow a comparison of single payer with every other proposal, in every committee of jurisdiction?
It is time for health reform based upon health policy science.