Obama refused to answer a question about health plan options for his family-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
A forwarded email about a question posed to President Obama on the ABC “Prescription for America Special” and his response. When asked if he would personally give up his current health plan to join the Universal Health Care program, the email said that Obama ignored the question and refused to answer.
The Truth:
This eRumor is a hoax. President Obama was asked a personal question about his choice of plans for his family and answered the question without hesitation. The circulated email appears to be satire or joke.
According to the transcript posted on the ABC web site, Obama was asked about his coverage choices by Dr. Orrin Devinsky on the ABC “Prescription for America.”
Devinsky ask the President, “if your wife or your doctor became seriously ill, and things were not going well, and the plan physicians told you they were doing everything that reasonably could be done, and you sought out opinions from some medical leaders and major centers, and they said there’s another option that you should — should pursue, but it was not covered in the plan, would you potentially sacrifice the health of your family for the greater good of insuring millions? Or would you do everything you possibly could as a father and husband to get the best health care and outcome for your family?”
Obama replied, “Well, first of all, Doctor, I think it’s a terrific question, and it’s something that touches us all personally, especially when you start talking about end-of-life care. As some of you know, my grandmother recently passed away, which was a very painful thing for me. She’s somebody who helped raise me. But she’s somebody who contracted what was diagnosed as terminal cancer. There was unanimity about that. They expected that she’d have six to nine months to live. She fell and broke her hip. And then the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough that they weren’t sure how long she would last, whether she could get through the surgery. I think families all across America are going through decisions like that all the time. And you’re absolutely right that, if it’s my family member, it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care. But here’s the problem that we have in our current health care system, is that there is a whole bunch of care that’s being provided that every study, every bit of evidence that we have indicates may not be making us healthier.
Click for ABC transcript.
YouTube Video
updated 07/23/09