Here’s a summary of the 2009 Daily News op-ed Michael Bloomberg mentioned at Wednesday’s debate

While fending off attacks from every direction at his first DNC debate Wednesday, Michael Bloomberg cited an op-ed he penned for the Daily News in July 2009 to make the case that he supported then-President Obama’s plans to overhaul national health care.

The record reflects that the former mayor was an advocate for the blueprint of the Affordable Health Care Act, which came to be known as Obamacare when it was signed into law in March 2010.

“The principles that President Obama has outlined for national health care reform are driven by a goal that I share: universal access to affordable health care,” Bloomberg wrote in the first line of that op-ed.

He later criticized the actual implementation of Obamacare as a “disgrace,” as Joe Biden pointed out during the debate.

Bloomberg’s op-ed was titled “A public insurance plan will help heal a broken health care system.”

He then wrote about a trip to Washington, D.C., from which he’d just returned. During that visit to the nation’s capital, the three-term mayor said he met with members of Congress to discuss such a plan.

Bloomberg contended in his op-ed that the private insurance companies that cover most Americans would be kept in check by a public plan.

“A public health insurance option would create a competitor to private insurers that could potentially drive down costs across the board,” Bloomberg contended. “I support the concept of a public plan, because if it's done right, it means introducing exactly the kind of competition our system needs.”

The 2020 presidential candidate, who turned 78 on Valentine’s Day, wrote about starting his own business in 1981, where he revolutionized the way banks and businesses collect information. Bloomberg is now worth more than $64 billion. He claimed the financial marketplace on the whole was made better by having to rise to the competition that tech-banking company, Innovative Market Systems, provided.

Bloomberg argued in the column that a public option would be especially beneficial to New Yorkers and other big city denizens, where an overwhelming majority of citizens are covered by a single company of a small group of companies. Giving citizens an alternative would force the entire system to “innovate, evolve and Improve," he wrote nearly 11 years ago.

“Creating more competition -- which has produced major cost savings in other industries -- makes the most sense,” Bloomberg summarized.

He lamented that America paid more for health care than any other country, yet 50 million Americans were uninsured at the time. Bloomberg signed off by vowing to sign on to the right national health care plan. A similar claim on the Bloomberg 2020 campaign webpage argues that if elected president, he would give all Americans a choice between public and private options.

“If an effective public option is put forth that makes health care more affordable and accessible for New Yorkers and all Americans, I’ll do everything I can to help it become a reality,” he concluded.

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