Subtle But Important Changes

Mary Katherine Ham notes an important change in the language Obama is using to sell his health care reforms. He's gone from this-

If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor under the reform proposals that we've put forward. If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep it.

To this-

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

In short, Obamacare won't force you to lose your current health insurance or doctor, but when the government mandates exactly what each policy will be required to cover (and remember, if you don't have a government approved plan you will be forced to pay a punitive tax) and so on, the chances are that you will lose your current plan and/or doctor. The government might not require it- but then again, why should they when the end result is the same? Also, if you aren't paying particularly close attention to the debate you might just be fooled into thinking that what Obama's saying is that even after Obamacare you'll be able to keep your current insurance and doctor.