Senators will gather this afternoon to start banging out a final health care reform bill. Vice President Biden is doing a little hammering of his own in advance of the debate, taking on reform opponents in a new video posted to the White House website. Biden enlists a slew of health care providers advocating reform to take on those who have criticized the Obama administration’s efforts to drive health care reform.
“When it comes to explaining what health care reform means to you, who do you trust?” Biden asks in the video. “Do you trust the people who defend the status quo, who say you’d be better off leaving things just the way they are? Or, would you rather hear from the people who actually know something about what’s going on in our health care system?”
The featured voices on the video include doctors and nurses. Biden says at the end of the video that their individual takes lead to one conclusion — people who work in health care want the Democratic-led reforms.
“The status quo is simply unsustainable. But we’re going to pass health care insurance reform,” Biden says. “Doctors and nurses know that what they see every day is wrong. And they know that we’re going to change it. When it comes to something as important as your health, listen to the people you trust.”
Both sides of the reform debate this year have attempted to claim doctors agree with them. In October, Glenn Beck hosted a “town hall” of doctors opposed to reform, and has claimed that health care providers fear the changes proposed in Congress. Democrats meanwhile, have touted public endorsements of their reform efforts from the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association.
