President Obama on Health Care Reform, Public Option, at AMA Meeting

President Barack Obama spoke to over 2,000 physicians at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in Chicago, and explained why we health care reform must be our top priority.

You can watch his speech above, or read the full text here.

The President explained the importance of a public option to meaningful health care reform (emphasis added):

The first thing we need to do is protect what’s working in our health care system. Let me repeat – if you like your health care, the only thing reform will mean is your health care will cost less. If anyone says otherwise, they are either trying to mislead you or don’t have their facts straight.

If you don’t like your health coverage or don’t have any insurance, you will have a chance to take part in what we’re calling a Health Insurance Exchange. This Exchange will allow you to one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose a plan that’s best for you and your family – just as federal employees can do, from a postal worker to a Member of Congress. You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package. And one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market so that [we can] force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest.

There is much more to the speech than just the public option, but in light of the fact that Senator Dodd is standing firm for a public option in the Senate HELP committee, it is a portion of President Obama's speech that is especially worthy of highlighting.

For a quick rundown on the public option and what it means, take a look at this post on the Health Care for America Now! blog.