Ramped-Up Rhetoric Fails to Dislodge Evidence

Marguerite Bowling /

President Barack Obama addresses the American Medical Association's annual meeting on June 15, 2009 in Chicago. Obama's speech to the AMA is his latest effort to persuade skeptics that his health care plan is worth the expected high cost.

In his speech today to the American Medical Association [], President Barack Obama called the “naysayers” of his proposed public health insurance plan as nothing more than liars. “So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this – they are not telling the truth.” he told AMA physician members at their annual conference in Chicago.

But the ramped-up rhetoric doesn’t address the projections that respected and nationally prominent health econometrics firm, the Lewin Group, has produced on a public plan if it were introduced in the market and modeled after Medicare. (more…)