Obama Opposed His Own Medicare Plan in 2009

Just one year before Congress passed President Barack Obama’s controversial healthcare law, the president denounced what would become a central component of the law as “the wrong approach.”
Obamacare, which passed in 2010, sought to reduce Medicare spending by strictly capping the program’s growth at GDP plus 1 percent. In his most recent budget proposal, Obama went even further, calling for Medicare growth capped at GDP plus 0.5 percent.
However, the president told the Washington Post in 2009 that this approach to Medicare reform was “wrong” and “doesn’t solve the underlying problem.”
Imposing strict caps on Medicare growth would mean “people being thrown off the rolls or cutting benefits,” Obama warned in 2009. In effect, Medicare recipients would “get less health care,” he said.
Here is Obama’s full quote:

What I think is probably the wrong approach is to think, well, the way to solve this is Medicare is spending X, and we’re just going to cap it at Y, and whatever that means in terms of people being thrown off the rolls or cutting benefits, you know, then so be it. Because that doesn’t solve the underlying problem which is health care costs themselves are still escalating at a 6 or 7 or 8 percent rate. All we’re doing is we’re just saying to people, you know what, you’re going to get less health care.

Read more: http://freebeacon.com/flashback-obama-opposed-his-own-medicare-plan-in-2009/