Axelrod On Obama's Health Reform Pledge: "Hindsight Is 20/20"
BILL KRISTOL: Can't we say that, in fact, it is not true that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor? If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan? That premiums won't go up? And these are things--
DAVID AXELROD: No, no.
BILL KRISTOL: -- that are already evidently not the case.
DAVID AXELROD: No, no. We can say that, in the small cohort of people who got bad health care policies, substandard health care policies after the law went into effect, that they will have to transition to other policies.
Let me tell you something. I know something about this. When I was 26 years old, I got a health care policy. I thought it was adequate. I was healthy, and as long as I was healthy, it was good. And then I had a child who was born with a chronic illness. It cost us $1,000 a month for prescription coverage, which we didn't have prescriptions for her to keep her alive. You know, the treatments she needed outside of what was in the policy was paid for. I was making $35,000 a year as a newspaper reporter. I almost went broke. And there are a lot of Americans out there who may think that they can get by with substandard--
DAVID AXELROD: --and I wish somebody had set standards then, David.
DAVID GREGORY: Okay, but hold on. But, David, this is about political practice and leadership. If you believe all those things, and therefore you want to get the very best health care; you were in the White House. You were advising the president on the kinds of things he should say. Why did not you or somebody else say to him, "Mr. President, don't say, 'No matter what you're going to keep your health care plan'"? Is that bad--
DAVID AXELROD: Hindsight is 20/20 because we--
DAVID GREGORY: But that's why you're there, is to--
DAVID AXELROD: There is a small group of people, David-- the vast majority of Americans, that statement will hold true for. For this small group of Americans, it hasn't. But the calamitous thing here is that the website wasn't up because many of those people who have to transition are going to get better experience for less money, but they just can't tell that now--
DAVID AXELROD: --because they can't get on the website.
BOB WOODWARD: David, this could be rectified. I remember early in the Obama presidency, when you were there, and there was some dispute about a cabinet nomination and the president came out and said, "I screwed up." Why not just be straightforward? Bill's right.
BILL KRISTOL: I think--
BOB WOODWARD: He said, period--
DAVID AXELROD: Yes, I agree.
BOB WOODWARD: "This is absolute. Everyone's going to keep their insurance."
DAVID AXELROD: I don't think there's any shame in saying, "We didn't anticipate this one glitch. We grandfathered a lot of policies. We didn't anticipate this one glitch." But many of those people are going to get better health care for less money when this website is up and running and they can select it.
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