Reply #7: Lambert?

[ProSense]

One of Hillary's famed bloggers? Edited to be clear, the recent forum single-payer was addressed. So there is no censorship.

He claims you can't find single-payer anywhere in a transcript they linked to and that there is censorship. Transcript from the recent Q&A:

DR. BERNSTEIN: After the last recession ended in 2001, the unemployment rate went up for another 19 months before it started coming back down.

This next question -- an area close to your heart -- health care reform. From Richard in California: "Why can we not have a universal health care system, like many European countries, where people are treated based on needs rather than financial resources?"

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I was in this room last month in what we called a health care forum. And we brought all the members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats who were interested in this issue; we brought together various constituency groups, insurance companies, drug companies, you name it. And my message to them was: Now is the time to reform the health care system -- not four years from now, not eight years from now, not 20 years from now. Now.

And the reason -- (laughter) -- the reason that I think it is so important is that the high costs of health care are a huge drag on our economy. It's a drag on our families. I can't tell you how many personal stories that I hear about people who are working, maybe have two parents working and yet still don't have health care. And the decisions that they have to make -- excruciating decisions about whether or not somebody goes to a doctor -- it makes them less productive, it makes them less mobile in terms of being able to take new jobs or start a new business because they're worried about hanging on to their health care. So it's a drag on families.

But it's a drag on businesses, as well. There's not a small business or large business out here who hasn't seen their health care costs skyrocket, and it cuts into their profits.

And it's a drag on the federal budget and the state budgets. That's the thing that is going to potentially break the bank here in the United States. Medicare and Medicaid, if we don't get control of that, that is the biggest driver of our long-term deficits.

So when people -- when you hear this budget debate that's taking place right now, and folks say, oh, you know, President Obama's budget, he's increasing money for veterans and he's increasing money for education, and he's doing all these things that -- that's going to bust the budget, what they don't understand is, is that if you add up the recovery package that we've already passed and you add up the various proposals I have to grow the economy through clean energy and all that stuff that we're doing, that amounts to a fraction of the long-term deficit and debt that we're facing. The lion's share of it has to do with Medicare and Medicaid and the huge, rising cost of health care. So our attitude is, better to pay now and make an investment in improving the health care system rather than waiting and finding ourselves in a situation where we can't fix it.

Now, the question is, if you're going to fix it, why not do a universal health care system like the European countries? I actually want a universal health care system; that is our goal. I think we should be able to provide health insurance to every American that they can afford and that provides them high quality.

So I think we can accomplish it. Now, whether we do it exactly the way European countries do or Canada does is a different question, because there are a variety of ways to get to universal health care coverage.

A lot of people think that in order to get universal health care, it means that you have to have what's called a single-payer system of some sort. And so Canada is the classic example: Basically, everybody pays a lot of taxes into the health care system, but if you're a Canadian, you're automatically covered. And so you go in -- England has a similar -- a variation on this same type of system. You go in and you just say, "I'm sick," and somebody treats you, and that's it.

The problem is, is that we have what's called a legacy, a set of institutions that aren't that easily transformed. Let me just see a show of hands: How many people here have health insurance through your employer? Okay, so the majority of Americans, sort of -- partly for historical accident. I won't go into -- FDR had imposed wage controls during war time in World War II. People were -- companies were trying to figure out how to attract workers. And they said, well, maybe we'll provide health care as a benefit.

And so what evolved in America was an employer-based system. It may not be the best system if we were designing it from scratch. But that's what everybody is accustomed to. That's what everybody is used to. It works for a lot of Americans. And so I don't think the best way to fix our health care system is to suddenly completely scrap what everybody is accustomed to and the vast majority of people already have. Rather, what I think we should do is to build on the system that we have and fill some of these gaps.

And I'm looking to Congress to work with me to find that optimal system. I made some proposals during the campaign about how we can lower costs through information technologies; how we can lower costs through reforms in how we reimburse doctors so that they're not getting paid just for the number of operations they're doing, but for whether they're quality outcomes; investing in prevention so that kids with asthma aren't going to the emergency room, but they're getting regular checkups.

So there are a whole host of things that we can do to cut costs, use that money that we're saving then to provide more coverage to more people. And my expectation is, is that I will have a health care bill to sign this year. That's what we're going to be fighting for. That's what we're going to be striving for.

Can I just interrupt, Jared, before you ask the next question, just to say that we -- we took votes about which questions were going to be asked and I think 3 million people voted or --