What was obamas answer to charlie Gibsons question about why they are exempt from the affordable health care act?

Answer 1

Not exactly. There are some internet blogs that claim the president said he would be exempt from the new health care law, but a look at the video and the transcript (both available at snopes.com) show he was not asked if he planned to be exempt; nor did he say he should be. This was during a conversation with Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson in June 2009, when competing versions of the health care bill were moving through congress.

The president was asked a number of questions, including whether it was fair for politicians to set limits on the public when they themselves had good health care already; he was also asked if he felt his own family should have such limits. The president mainly discussed why the current system does not work and why it needs reform. He agreed that he wanted his family to have the best care if an emergency arose (he mentioned how his beloved grandmother had recently been ill and then died), but he did not get into specifics about which plan he favored, nor did he say his family should have better health care than other people. And it is worth noting that in other interviews, he commented that he and congress already have health insurance; this bill was about providing it for people who do not have it at all, or who are denied full access due to a pre-existing condition.

Answer 2

In the June 2009 interview with Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, while the proposed new health care law was being debated, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, suggested that politicians often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, knowing that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will still be able to afford the best care available. The doctor asked the president if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn't seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the plan he was proposing limited the tests or treatment they could get.

The president acknowledged the disparity in the health care options some people have, but did not make any pledges, since at this point, there were competing plans moving through congress. He did, however, repeat what he had said during the interview: that the current health care system was ineffective and expensive. He agreed that if a person in his own family were ill, he would want that person to get the best care available. But he did not suggest that his family should get better care than anyone else. In looking at the transcript of his interview, you can see that he frequently turned the questions into a generalized discussion of what works and does not work in health care, and why reform is necessary, rather than answering specific questions about what he and his family might or might not do.

Answer 3

First, this is not an accurate description of what happened. President Obama was in fact interviewed by Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer of ABC-TV back in June 2009, but a look at the video, or a reading of the transcript (both available at the fact-checking site snopes.com), shows he was not asked whether he would give up his health insurance, nor was he asked why he is exempt. He was asked some hypothetical questions about the proposed health care plan and how it might affect different groups of people; he discussed the positives and negatives of his plan, as well as the problems with current health care in the United States. But he did not say he was exempt, nor was he asked about it.