Dr. David Himmelstein says Dr. Howard Dean is lying about the Obama health care proposal.

Himmelstein is a founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dean is the former head of the Democratic National Committee and is making the television talk show rounds promoting Obama’s health care reform.

Himmelstein says that Dean is portraying Obamacare as something it isn’t.

It isn’t single payer – as Dean said it is.

And it doesn’t give Americans the option to opt into a single payer system – Medicare – as Dean said it does – most recently last week on Democracy Now.

“He’s a liar,” Himmelstein told Single Payer Action yesterday.

Dean told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman last week that Obama’s public option plan is best thought of as Medicare or single payer.

“For the average American, they should best think of it as Medicare,” Dean said.

According to Dean, under the Obama plan, the American people will have a choice to opt into a single payer system.

“Look, you decide for yourself,” Dean said. “We’re going to allow people under sixty-five to sign up for what people over sixty-five have. And you make the choice.”

Dean said that the Obama plan will give Americans the choice “between whether they would like a single payer for themselves and their families or whether they would not.”

One problem: Obama’s plan is not single payer.

Another problem: It’s not like Medicare.

“He’s a liar,” Himmelstein says.

“He knows that the public option plan is not single payer and he says it is to try and confuse people,” Himmelstein said. “He goes on Democracy Now and other shows and says that people can buy into Medicare when he knows that what is in the plan is not that.”

“Medicare doesn’t have to compete,” Himmelstein said. “That’s why it’s so efficient.”

And it’s definitely not single payer.

Himmelstein says that the Obama plan would mandate that people buy insurance from competing private plans – and one denuded public plan.

The private health insurance companies would cherry pick the young healthy patients, while the sick older patients would opt into the public plan – making the public plan unsustainable.

Himmelstein says the upcoming Congressional vote on the Obama health care reform has little significance because it does not represent fundamental reform.

“It’s like giving aspirin to a patient who has cancer,” Himmelstein said. “Instead of asking – what can we do to treat your cancer?”

Himmelstein says that when the time comes to vote on the Obama health plan, members of Congress should abstain.