Who is Robert Reich and what is he up to? Verum Serum explains:
Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under Clinton and more recently an Obama economic adviser, has been all over the media lately shilling for ObamaCare. The public option is no more dangerous than a box of puppies according to this professionally produced video featuring Reich. (I won’t embed it but it’s worth a quick watch.) The real injustice, according to Reich, is that political operatives like us are trying to “confuse and scare” people about change.
But what was Robert Reich saying in 2007? Well he was explaining what a candidate for president would say if he wanted to tell the truth about health care. And what is the truth about health care, according to Robert Reich, who now works for Barack Obama?
Listen:
Say what? (H/T Newsbusters)
Let me tell you a few things on health care. Look, we have the only health care system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. And that’s true and what I’m going to do is that I am going try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people but that means you, particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people…you’re going to have to pay more.
“Thank you. And by the way, we’re going to have to, if you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.”
“Also, I’m going to use the bargaining leverage of the federal government in terms of Medicare, Medicaid—we already have a lot of bargaining leverage—to force drug companies and insurance companies and medical suppliers to reduce their costs. What that means, less innovation and that means less new products and less new drugs on the market which means you are probably not going to live much longer than your parents. Thank you.”
So let’s see. Young, healthy people (like me) will pay more. Old, retired people like my parents will be murdered by death panels. And health care innovators and insurance providers will be run out of business, which reduces quality and raises costs. Well, OK, then. So now we understand what Obama’s socialized takeover of health care would really accomplish from the mouth of his own advisor.
I note that Hot Air has a video of Reich explaining all his previous opinions away.