FACT CHECK: White House ignores health concession

FACT CHECK: White House health care rhetoric ignores concession on government-run plan

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama has indicated a willingness to drop a government-run health care plan from any overhaul. The White House says that's not a shift. Actually, it is.

Fierce proponents of a government-run health plan for months, Obama and senior administration officials, bowing to pressure from Republicans and skeptical voters, suggested that such a public option is not do-or-die.

"All I'm saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform," the president told a town hall-style audience in Grand Junction, Colo., on Saturday. "This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it."

CLAIM: "I challenge you guys all to go back and see what we've said about this over the course of many, many, many, many months, and you'll find a boring consistency to our rhetoric," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

THE FACTS: During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama said a new public plan should offer comprehensive insurance similar to that available to federal employees.

In the first half of the year, Obama said repeatedly in speeches, weekly radio and Internet addresses and town halls that he wants a health care overhaul that has a taxpayer-funded public health insurance option. He has said the plan would compete with private insurance to keep costs down.

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