Prometheus 6

ABC News' Teddy Davis, John Santucci and Gregory Wallace Report: No policy proposal more sharply divided Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton than the former first lady's plan requiring adults to purchase health insurance.

But as the one-time rivals head to Unity, N.H., on Friday, a health adviser to the presumptive Democratic nominee is signaling that Obama's plan could eventually go in Clinton's direction.

The funny thing is, this is true...yet the differences were so small you could actually ignore them for purposes of projecting the outcome of implementing each.

Please, ABC, Tell Us What This Story Is About
Another Obama flip-flop? Or just a plan that insurers will support?
By Trudy Lieberman Tue 1 Jul 2008 01:59 PM

A Dart to ABCNews.com for a muddled mess of a story that may be interesting to Beltway health cognoscenti, but is confusing as the devil to the man (or woman) on the street. The story, entitled “Obama Health Plan Could Go In Clinton’s Direction,” seems to say that Barack Obama now supports an individual mandate for health care. During the primaries, Obama repeatedly said that he would not require people (except children) to have insurance, and blasted Clinton for supporting an individual mandate. On Friday, ABC reported that, at a National Journal health policy forum last week, Obama spokesperson Dr. Kavita Patel said that the senator “is willing to consider any sort of proposal that would bring together, not just the insurance industry but…the consumers themselves.”

Patel also told ABC News: “He has not said he is opposed to it. He has voiced his disagreement with having that be a part of his health-care plan last year. But he is not opposed to the idea itself.” There was no evidence the reporter pinned her down. However, the revelation sent the Obama camp scrambling to cover its tracks.

In the same post (in what ABC called an UPDATE), a campaign spokesman said that Obama “does not have plans to change his health care plan, which will achieve universal coverage.” Ah, there was that term again. “Universal.” Again, this raises the question of how Obama will achieve universal coverage without a mandate—an unlikely prospect unless there’s divine intervention.

What’s the real story? Who knows, but it didn’t take long for GOP.com, a blog of the Republican National Committee to seize on the flip flop.