This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

If you want to see what President Obama wants to do to the U.S. health care system overall, look at what he wants to do

for Medicare.

Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, says the President

wants to eliminate competition within Medicare rather than let choice drive costs down.

This is from the Associated Press August 4, 1982.

The Reagan administration today endorsed a Medicare voucher plan that

advocates say would hold down federal costs while encouraging

competition in the health care field. The plan would allow most of the 29

million people in the 44.8 billion dollar Medicare program

to withdraw from it by receiving a voucher worth the average amount spent per person on Medicare by region with which to purchase private insurance or

Jane an HMO.

President Obama has been using a lot of rhetoric regarding choice and competition,

yet made a special point in his address to Congress

to say that a Medicare voucher program was off the table.

If you want to know what President Obama's true intentions are for health care reform,

don't listen to his rhetoric, look at what he's trying to do to the Medicare program.

In the Medicare program, you have something that is arguably, functionally, a voucher system in that a lot of seniors can choose

instead of getting their health coverage from the government directly through

the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program. They can go into the Medicare Advantage program

and get their health benefits from a private insurer. What the president is

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