WASHINGTON — Bailout “sticker shock” and a massive stimulus bill may have soured some Americans on costly health-care reform, President Obama said yesterday.
“This is a very difficult economic environment,” Obama said on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
“People are feeling anxious, and I think it is absolutely fair to say that people started feeling some sticker shock.”
He added, however, that the government would be helpless to control federal spending unless America reins in rising Medicare and Medicaid costs.
“We’re not going to get a better opportunity to solve our health-care issues than we have right now,” the president said.
As for the heckling by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) during Wednesday’s speech before Congress, Obama said, “There has been, I think, a coarsening of our political dialogue . . . since I got into politics.”
Wilson, who shouted, “You lie,” yesterday refused to apologize to his colleagues for the breach of protocol, telling “Fox News Sunday”: “I apologized to the president on Wednesday night. I believe that is sufficient.”