President Obama and Single Payer

Conservatives have challenged President Obama's denial that he has supported a single payer health system. This exchange echoes one from the 2008 campaign. As the Huffington Post reported on January 22, 2008:

Pivoting off of one of the few policy spats in Monday night's presidential debate in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton hit Barack Obama on Tuesday for wavering on his support for a single-payer health care system. In a video put out on YouTube, the Clinton campaign contrasts portions of the debate - in which Obama says "I never said we should go and try to get single payer" - and a speech Obama gave to the AFL-CIO in 2003 - in which he says, "I happen to be a proponent of single-payer health care coverage."