Obama 2006: Combining Private and Public Health Insurance 'Worst of Both Worlds'

August 29th, 2009 10:28 AM

As Barack Obama and his media minions try to force healthcare reform down the throats of the American people, the President has repeatedly said that a public option would increase competition for private insurance companies and thereby drive down prices.

This apparently wasn't his view in 2006 when he said the expansion of medicare to include prescription drug coverage for seniors was "the worst of both worlds: we've got the price gouging of the private sector and the bureaucracy of the public sector."

One would think that in the middle of the current debate about healthcare reform an honest media would share what then Sen. Obama told CBS's Bob Schieffer on June 14, 2006, and that the President would be asked what he meant back then as well as what changed his mind about such a combination (video embedded below the fold courtesy Naked Emperor News):

Think we'll be seeing this video during the Sunday political talk shows tomorrow, or that the President -- whenever his vacation ends -- will be asked to elaborate on this statement three years ago?

If this does get covered, so-called journalists might also point out that during this same interview, then Sen. Obama told Schieffer that President Bush should alter the caustic political tone in Washington by reigning in the partisan attacks by his surrogates:

If Obama felt it was the President's responsibility to prevent partisan attacks in 2006, shouldn't media hold him to the same standard now that he's in the White House?

Or would that be too much like journalism?