Last week, Barack Obama finally did what Democratic activists had been desperately hoping he would do—he reproached his successor ahead of the midterm election. It was a long, discursive oration, as Obama’s orations usually are, and it contained lots of impromptu gibes and derisive harrumphs that made the 44th president sound less like a retired statesman than a candidate vying for office.
Amidst all the verbiage, though, even those of us perverse enough to listen to the whole speech might have missed a key moment: the bit where Obama admitted—finally—that he favors nationalizing the health-care industry. “So Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like a higher minimum wage,” said the man who gave us the Affordable Care Act; “they’re running on good new ideas like Medicare-for-all, giving workers seats on corporate boards, reversing the most egregious corporate tax cuts to make sure students graduate debt-free.”
We’ll leave readers to decide if these items are “good old ideas” or “good new ideas” or just bad ideas; and in any case we haven’t the slightest clue what the connection is between “egregious corporate tax cuts” and the high costs of higher education. But we can’t let Obama’s endorsement of “Medicare-for-all” pass without comment. The phrase was made famous by Bernie Sanders, and it signifies the full-on nationalization of the health-care industry so that everybody can enjoy the benefits of America’s most expensive and worst-run health-care program. It also signifies a plan that’s not remotely affordable for a nation with the budgetary obligations of the United States—$32 trillion over 10 years.
But hold on. We seem to remember that in 2009 Obama specifically disavowed any intention of nationalizing the health-care industry. “What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system,” Obama said to the American Medical Association soon after taking office. “I’ll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well. But I believe—and I’ve taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief—that it’s important for our reform efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States. So when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They’re not telling the truth.”
That’s a tortured quotation, so allow us to summarize what the president meant nearly a decade ago: If you like private-sector health care, you can keep it.
