President Obama on Health Care: Promises Made, Promises Kept?
Speaking to House Republicans today in Baltimore, President Obama admitted that he had not adhered to his campaign promises to bring transparency to health care negotiations: “There were…a series of meetings taking place all over the Capitol trying to figure out how to get the thing together, that was a messy process. And I take responsibility for not having structured it in a way where it was all taking place in one place that could be filmed.” Of course, just last night Politico reported that the President remains in “close consultation” with Democrats in Congress as they attempt to find a way “to get the whole thing [back] together” after Scott Brown’s election victory. So the President publicly accepted responsibility, both to Diane Sawyer earlier this week and Republicans today, for a lack of transparency in the health care process – but have the “close consultation[s]” the President’s been having in recent days to find the votes necessary to resurrect his government takeover of health care been transparent to the American people?
The President also noted in his comments today that “We said from the start that – that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your – if you want to keep the health insurance you’ve got, you can keep it; that you’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision-making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in there might have violated that pledge.”
The President’s quote raises interesting questions about which provisions that “snuck in” to the bills violated his campaign pledges. Is it the cuts to Medicare Advantage that would reduce that popular program’s enrollment by as many as 6 million seniors? Is it the new and onerous regulatory standards for individual and employer health coverage that could cause millions more Americans to lose their current plan? Is it the plan – strongly endorsed by the Administration –to allow a board of unelected bureaucrats to re-write health care regulations? Or is it all of the above policies that will break the President’s campaign promises?