Posted in the thread below back in June, but some people continue to distort the views of PNHP.

Interview on the Ed Show was during the time that SP advocates were trying to get a seat at the Senate round tables - Baucus had excluded them from participating. Ed asked Dean what he thought about SP being off the table, Dean said SP is Not off the table. Dean knows what the physicians were advocating for when they talk about SP, Medicare for All.

Why would he confuse the issue and lead people to believe that the public option is the same as SP or just like SP???

In addition he keeps referring to the public option as being like Medicare, but Medicare does not have to compete for the basic coverage with private insurance plans and started with millions of people in the plan which could then bargain for lower prices.



Why are people trying to discredit single-payer advocates? ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...


Begins at the 2:55 mark...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DitCTKPL-xI

"...What Obama's plan essentially does is give you the choice of whether you want to be in a single-payer or private insurance plan..."


http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/06/dean-wyd...

"Public option is like single payer. It gives consumers the choice..."


http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/17/gov_...

"AMY GOODMAN: Explain what is the public option, as it’s been presented.

HOWARD DEAN: For the average American, they should best think of it as Medicare..."


You could also read what Dean told the insurance companies when he spoke at the AHIP convention.

http://healthplans.hcpro.com/content.cfm?c...

"What the president is proposing to do is say, if you like what you have, you can keep it. If you're comfortable with the private insurance market, you can keep it. Not only that, but we'll help you buy it. There will be a government subsidy based on your income, particularly helpful to small businesses, that you will receive to buy healthcare in the private market," Dean said. "But you will also have a choice of buying into a public plans such as Medicare or some other public plan. And I'm one of the few defenders of that in this room."

"Now I know people in this room, in this industry, are very, very fearful," he said. "This is the center of opposition."

He looked at the rows of representatives of Aetna, Blue Cross, and dozens of other companies assembled and said, "Your living is at stake here. But I don't think it's going to be as tough as you think it is."



Also read about the data exclusivity amendment that Dean argued for as part of his role as an adviser to McKenna, Long & Aldridge...

Biotech firms lobby for say on healthcare
$66m effort to protect drug-patent exclusivity

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles... /

"...The quest for influence is not always obvious.

Howard Dean, the former Democratic Party chairman, wrote an opinion piece this month in The Hill, an influential Capitol Hill newspaper, arguing that fewer than 12 years of monopoly rights for biotech companies’ products “would prematurely rob innovators of their intellectual property and . . . destroy incentives to develop new cures.’’

Within hours Joe Trippi, a Democratic consultant who ran Dean’s 2004 presidential race, hyped Dean’s opinion piece in a blog post that he sent to The Huffington Post, a widely read website. “He’s a doctor and lifelong advocate for health reform - he knows what he’s talking about,’’ Trippi wrote, urging readers to contact their lawmakers.

...Dean failed to note in his editorial that he is an adviser to McKenna, Long & Aldridge, a global law firm that is advising the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the influential trade group.

...But Dean said his editorial was part of McKenna’s rapid-fire response to an unexpected, eleventh-hour Senate health committee proposal (which biotech firms ultimately fought off).

“It was a huge scramble, all hands on deck,’’ Dean said..."