Harry Reid: Obamacare Just a Step Toward Eventual Single-Payer System

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said President Barack Obama's landmark health care law is a step toward an eventual all-out single-payer system where the government pays for health care costs instead of private insurers, The Las Vegas Sun reported:

Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”

“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.

When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”

The idea of introducing a single-payer national health care system to the United States, or even just a public option, sent lawmakers into a tizzy back in 2009, when Reid was negotiating the health care bill.

“We had a real good run at the public option … don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted a single-payer system,” Reid said [...].

Eventually, Reid decided the public option was unworkable.

“We had to get a majority of votes,” Reid said. “In fact, we had to get a little extra in the Senate, we have to get 60.”

Read the full story at The Las Vegas Sun.

(H/T: Drudge Report)

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