Looks like Governor Jindal had CNN’s John Roberts for lunch early yesterday!
NewsBusters reports that Jindal had the best of the host. Mike Sargent’s conclusion is that:
Now, let’s recap. Roberts shows up for the interview in attack mode, using left-leaning statistics
from left-leaning groups, backs them with Kos talking points – and even attempts to implicate
Jindal for failing, federally mandated health-care programs that predate his term as governor.
And Jindal crushed him for it.
One wonders if Roberts was expecting Kenneth the Page.
The article is great and worth reading. This is CNN’s take on it. The Governor was articulate on this
issue as exhibited from the CNN dialogue. Roberts tried to make the statistic of 119 million people
in the government plan sound alarmist but Jindal answered it like this:
Roberts: But they also say that as few as 10.1 million may leave for government-run health care
depending on how the plan is formulated. That 119 million was the upper level and even the
people who wrote that report said that’s a worst case scenario.Jindal: But you’re talking about the same government that’s paying for health care, regulating health care, now competing. It’s going to be taxpayer subsidized. By their own estimates they say because the government will be shifting costs to the private sector, they’re going to be underpaying providers.
They’ll be able to undercut their competition until they drive the competition out of the marketplace.Because it’s taxpayer-backed, you know that they’ll have a lower cost of debt. They will be able to
artificially shift costs. That’s what happens today in Medicare and Medicaid. That’s why you’ve got
even Democratic legislators concerned. What happens today with Medicare and Medicaid is they
underpay, shifting costs to the private sector. You’re going to have a government-run plan doing the
same thing. They’re going to be artificially able to drive the private sector out of competition…
I’d say Jindal was great here. As my other political hero, Cong. Ron Paul, said in a 2008 debate: Those who said [Iraq] would be a bloodbath are the same ones who said it would be a cakewalk and that it would be paid for by oil.
Those who say the health plan will produce a surplus and will not cause private plans to fail are making the same sort of promises – and have a vested political interest in seeing their side win.
