Chris Matthews: Ignorant about policy

Via Bob Somerby, MSNBC's Chris Matthews demonstrates his staggering ignorance about policy issues:

During the March 11 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, guest Chris Matthews asserted that in order to "get something done in this country," politicians need to "do the surprising move that grabs the center" and that "if a Democrat were smart, who gets elected president, they wouldn't go back to the old Canadian model ... single-payer model." In fact, neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Sen. Hillary Clinton has proposed a health-care plan that resembles the Canadian health-care system or a "single-payer model." Matthews also suggested that the Democratic candidates should "take something that looks practical out of Massachusetts with [former Gov.] Mitt Romney [R] ... and put [their] name on it" and "try some kind of mandated benefit." However, Obama's and Clinton's health-care proposals both include "mandated benefit[s]," and Clinton's plan has drawn comparisons to the plan Romney implemented in Massachusetts.

Contrary to Matthews' suggestion, the health-care plans proposed by Obama and Clinton do not follow the "Canadian model," which provides federally funded and managed universal health insurance. Obama's health-care plan does not require the government to manage or fund health insurance for all Americans; rather, his plan allows individuals to keep -- and pay for -- their private health insurance if they so choose, while establishing "a new public insurance program, available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP [the State Children's Health Insurance Program] nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees."

Despite my extremely low opinion of Matthews, this is still staggering. He's on TV every day and he has no idea what the Democrats are proposing on the most important domestic policy issue in this election. None!

To paraphrase Brad DeLong's saying about Bush, Matthews is worse than I imagined possible, even after taking into account the fact that he is worse than I imagined possible. But as Somerby (obsessively) points out, most pundits won't say anything about him because they want to go on "Hardball" and raise their profile.

Comments

[David]

Media Matters says, "Obama's health-care plan...allows individuals to keep -- and pay for -- their private health insurance if they so choose, while establishing "a new public insurance program, available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP...nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees."

Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like every American could choose to get free health inurance from the government. Who would buy insurance when he could get it free from Uncle Sam? Why would businesses provide health care, when their employees could get it free from the government?

So, it appears that in practice Obama's plan would be similar to Canada's, since almost all Americans would choose to be covered by the public insurance program.

[Dave]

Somerby has to "obsessively" say it because you and maybe three others are the only other people who ever say it at all.

[Noumenon]

Sorry, but I read you, Kevin Drum, Marginal Revolution, et cetera every day and I don't know whether the Dems are offering a single-payer plan either. When I go to the candidates' web sites (especially Obama's) I'm shocked by the number of openly stated proposals there when from every other source I read it seems like they don't make any specific promises at all.