Pretty Much Everyone Knows The Public Option Will Lead To A Single Payer Health Care System

Which makes the Obama administration’s denials to the contrary all the more ludicrous. His lies about his past  support for single payer are beyond ludicrous at this point. They’re pathological. And it’s getting tougher and tougher for Democrats in congress to keep a straight face and pretend that their support for a public option isn’t de facto support for single payer.

Read Verum Serum:

Experts Agree: ObamaCare is a Trojan Horse for Single Payer

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey does his usual superb job in breaking down a USA Today post fact-checking the President on his town hall meeting in New Hampshire yesterday. Conn Carroll over at The Heritage Foundation put together a great fact check as well.

But the analysis I found most interesting was a discussion forum over at Politico, where a moderator asked a panel of experts whether the public option is the first step towards a single-payer system. And while some of the respondents were clearly partisan, there were several academic experts on the panel. Take a look at some of their responses:

Many Democrats are on record saying that it IS the first step toward a government-run single payer-type system. President Obama, himself, has repeatedly expressed his support for a single payer system.

So it should be no surprise that Americans have come to think that the current legislation is a step toward single payer. Apparently many Democrats think that it is, and they are driving the bus.

– James G. Gimpel, Professor of Political Science, Maryland

Duh.

By the way, it is worth noting the ridiculousness of the public option idea if it is intended as anything but the first step to a government-run, single payer system. The idea that a “government option” is needed to keep the industry honest or provide consumer choice is as nutty as suggesting that we need government-run restaurants and grocery stores to keep competition honest.

– Bradley A. Smith, Professor, election law and campaign finance

The public option is indeed a major step toward a government-run, single-payer system, as the result of scale economies in health insurance. But no, the current proposal is not the “first step.” The first, second, and third steps already happened long ago (Medicare being the most significant one). Government already runs a substantial chunk of health care, deciding via its control over the purse strings what procedures and which doctors many people go to. Some experts believe that the “tipping point” that would lead to major withdrawals by private insurers, and thus a near-total government control over the system, would occur at around a 60% government share, and we are already close to that point. The public option now being touted by President Obama likely would push us over the tipping point.

– Charles W. Calomiris, Professor of Financial Institutions, Columbia

There’s plenty more at Verum Serum. The whole lot needs to be flagged and reported to: flag@whitehouse.gov, I guess.

And pretty much everything Obama said at his town hall can be debunked by just taking a look at HR 3200.

Same with his bogus “Reality Check” Website.

RELATED:

Donald Douglas has an excellent report on the Adam Schiff town hall, yesterday in CA. 3000 people showed up at the  Alhambra Public Library, most of them anti-ObamaCare protesters:

Astroturf at Adam Schiff Town Hall: ACORN, AARP, Organizing for America, SEIU, and Stalinist Apparatchiks for ObamaCare!

When are they going to figure out that the American people know they’re being lied to, and it’s pissing them off?!