Obama almost a decade ago, speaking about "single payer", video below.
At the end of the video above, Obama says first they have to take the White House, the Senate and Congress- they did.......
Perhaps now wasn't the time for Barack Obama to take on the far left of his party, the portion of it that insisted the public option part of Obamacare was their Waterloo, but that is what he did nonetheless.
Obama tells the Washington Post that he "didn't campaign on the public option."
I submit, using the video above as proof, that Barack Obama had been campaigning on the "public option and/or "single payer" option, for almost a decade, at least.
Liberals across the country did some digging and are calling him out as a liar.
Think Progress finds multiple instances where Obama did, in fact, campaign on the public option.
– In the 2008 Obama-Biden health care plan on the campaign’s website, candidate Obama promised that “any American will have the opportunity to enroll in [a] new public plan.” [2008]
– During a speech at the American Medical Association, President Obama told thousands of doctors that one of the plans included in the new health insurance exchanges “needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market.” [6/15/09]
– While speaking to the nation during his weekly address, the President said that “any plan” he signs “must include…a public option.” [7/17/09]
– During a conference call with progressive bloggers, the President said he continues “to believe that a robust public option would be the best way to go.” [7/20/09]
– Obama told NBC’s David Gregory that a public option “should be a part of this [health care bill],” while rebuking claims that the plan was “dead.” [9/20/09]
Salon says Obama is trying to "get cute with semantics" by making this claim.
Politico points to a campaign position paper on health care where public option/plan was mentioned eight different times.
Moderate Voice says Obama is "fudging the truth."
Jon Walker at FDL adds this to the list of broken promises by Obama.
Empty Wheel takes on Obamabot defenders (Erza Klein) and takes them to task.
It is pretty hard to rewrite history when everything said and done is captured on the Internet and by video, forever.