In a town hall meeting broadcast by ABC News last night, President Obama fielded audience questions about his health-reform plans, ranging from access to treatment to cost containment. Read the full transcript here . Afterward, ABC did a little fact checking on what the president said. Three samples: Obama has tried to assure individuals that they won’t be forced to switch doctors or change health plans with his new plan. But ABC notes — and the president acknowledged at his news conference Tuesday — that private companies can choose different plans for their employees on their own — and Obama isn’t proposing to change this. But, the president pledges, Americans won’t be forced by the government to switch to a new plan. Private health insurers are concerned that a government-run option would drive them out of business, and the president says it won’t. With many details

about this option still unknown, the debate continues, but critics insist that competing with a public plan that doesn’t need to make a profit would be an unequal playing field by definition. Obama has said recently he is open to the possibility of an overhaul without an option of a public plan. Can a plan for health-care reform really be carried out without incurring further debt, as Obama has insisted on multiple occasions? It would be tough, according to ABC. More revenue will be needed to fund the plan if no more debt is to be incurred, which brings up the tricky issue of how to raise that money. Ideas that have been proposed include lowering the percentage that wealthy Americans can deduct on their tax returns or taxing health benefits.

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Separating Fact from Fiction on Health-Care Reform