John King provides a forum for Hatch’s public option misinformation
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 31st, 2009 4:44 am by HL
John King provides a forum for Hatch’s public option misinformation
On State of the Union, CNN’s John King allowed Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to baselessly claim that “the vast majority of people” don’t support the creation of a public health insurance option, and that the public option would cost “four to five hundred billion dollars” which would be taken “out of Medicare.” In fact, most recent polls indicate that a plurality or majority of respondents support a public option, and the Congressional Budget Office has found that the public option proposed in health reform legislation by the Senate health committee — on which Hatch sits — would “not have a substantial effect on the cost” of the bill.
From the August 30 edition of CNN’s State of the Union:
HATCH: You know, it’s interesting to be on with Senator Dodd, who is, I think, Senator Kennedy’s greatest Democrat friend. I consider myself his best Republican friend. And Chris and I, we have been able to work together as Teddy and I used to work together. But it’s gonna take a lot of work because, you know, many of the so-called progressives in the Democratic Party are insisting on this public or Washington government-run plan, and the vast majority of people out there in the public, they don’t want that. They’re scared to death knowing that Medicare has $38 trillion in unfunded liability as we sit here and that in order to get that public plan and pay for it, they’re gonna take four to five hundred billion dollars out of Medicare. I mean, that’s crazy.
KING: Senator Dodd, we’re going to talk more about the policy of health care as we move on, but on the question of Vicki Kennedy.
Hatch’s claim that the “vast majority” oppose public option undermined by polling
Kaiser Family Foundation: 59 percent favor creating “government-administered public health insurance option.” The August 4-11 sits on the HELP committee.
