Did President Obama Make His Case on Health Care? - By Jake Tapper and Karen Travers
June 25, 2009
President Obama made a push Wednesday for evidence-based medicine and a reduction in health care costs in the United States, but skeptics and many Republicans remain unconvinced his plans will work. In a town hall meeting, the president fielded tough questions about his plans. The president faced questions about the rising cost of health care, his proposed "public option" plan and taxing benefits during an ABC News' special on health care reform, "Questions for the President: Prescription for America," anchored from the White House by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson. The probing questions came from two skeptical neurologists. Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the NYU Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it's not provided by insurance. Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he's proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get. The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.”
- Orrin Devinsky, MD, director, The Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, professor, neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry
Learn more: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/story?id=7919991&page=1
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/story?id=7925042&page=1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/obama-hosts-abc-news-at-t_n_220518.html
