Fact Check: Clinton, Obama & Health Care

Fact Check: Clinton, Obama & Health Care
1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says that Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama has shifted his position on whether the United States should institute a "single-payer" health-care system that is run by the government. It's an idea that many health-care experts think is the best way to ensure coverage for all, but that many Americans reject as a move toward socialized medicine.
Clinton says Obama once advocated a single-payer system, later supported the idea "in principle," and now backs a health plan, built on the current private insurance system, that would fall short of universal coverage.

THE SPIN:
By highlighting what she calls Obama's "evolution" on the single-payer question, Clinton tries to raise questions both about his commitment to health-care coverage for all and about his consistency. "What we're looking for is a president we can count on, that you know where that president is yesterday, today and tomorrow," she said in a debate earlier this month. Obama claims he's always said that single-payer is a good idea that can't be achieved now because of the current entrenched system. His campaign says it's actually Clinton who has been all over the map on health care, and specifically on the question of "single-payer" coverage.

THE FACTS:
There is video of Obama telling the AFL-CIO in 2003: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program. ... A single-payer health care plan, a universal health plan. And that's what I'd like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, we have to take back the House."
In 1996, Obama answered a questionnaire about whether he supported a single-payer system by stating, "Yes in principle," adding that it was probably best to have the federal government set up such a program instead of the state.
At Monday's debate, Obama said: "I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single payer. What I said was that if I were starting from scratch, if we didn't have a system in which employers had typically provided health care, I would probably go with a single-payer system."
Obama's words have shifted. But even in the 2003 video, he made it clear that he didn't think single-payer could be achieved under current circumstances.
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Clinton's health-care proposals, and her language, have shifted too.
In 1993, as first lady, she proposed a drastic overhaul of the health-care system that would have established mandatory insurance-purchasing alliances, but not a single-payer system.
In 1998, speaking about the lessons learned from the 1993 disaster, she said: "I come from the school of smaller steps. It is far better to try to make changes that will help at least some people than to do nothing and help no one."
Last April, she was asked about a single-payer plan and said, "It is unfair to tell people we can do something politically when we don't yet have the votes to do it."
At Monday's debate, she said: "If you don't start out trying to get universal health care, we know ... you'll never get there."
Her current plan would achieve universal coverage not through a single-payer system but by an "individual mandate" requiring everyone to get health insurance, just as most states require drivers to buy auto insurance.
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