Executive editor's note: Due to an error made by a secondary source, the piece below incorrectly claimed that Warren Buffett had called for the repeal of Obamacare in 2013. The interview which was cited actually took place in 2010. We regret the error.
When Warren Buffett proposed higher taxes on millionaires in 2011, the media gushed and fawned giving him and his views airtime as if Elvis Presley returned from the dead.
Will they be as fascinating by the Oracle of Omaha stating that ObamaCare should be scrapped?
Money Morning recently interviewed Buffett on the subject of healthcare:
Healthcare costs in the United States are like a tapeworm eating at our economic body.
Those words come from famed investor Warren Buffett, who said he would scrap Obamacare and start all over.
"We have a health system that, in terms of costs, is really out of control," he added. "And if you take this line and you project what has been happening into the future, we will get less and less competitive. So we need something else."
Buffett insists that without changes to Obamacare average citizens will suffer.
"What we have now is untenable over time," said Buffett, an early supporter of President Obama. "That kind of a cost compared to the rest of the world is really like a tapeworm eating, you know, at our economic body."
Buffett does not believe that providing insurance for everyone is the first step to take in correcting our nation's healthcare system.
"Attack the costs first, and then worry about expanding coverage," he said. "I would much rather see another plan that really attacks costs. And I think that's what the American public wants to see. I mean, the American public is not behind this bill."
It seems a metaphysical certitude that if Buffett in this MM interview said ObamaCare will save people a great deal of money and should be implemented exactly as is, the media would be all over it.
But the Oracle of Omaha saying it should be scrapped?
Seems highly-unlikely this will get much attention outside of the conservative media.
Stay tuned.
(HT Weekly Standard)
