The healthcare reform bill that will go to the vote on the US Senate floor this week falls well short of Barack Obama’s original vision.
As the president took office at the beginning of this year, he laid out a plan for reform including a robust “public option” for a nationwide government-backed scheme that would inject a bolt of competition into the inefficient medical insurance market.
Instead, he is set next month to sign into law a bill that, while dramatically expanding healthcare insurance coverage, will largely leave insurance in the hands of private companies.
Obama merely wanted to expand health care. I don’t recall him supporting a single payer option or “socialized” medicine.
No matter what people on the right say, Obama is a moderate and a centrist. Just ask real socialists what they think of him.