Obama the Story Teller
In an interview with Charlie Rose yesterday, President Obama said his biggest mistake as President was that he was too focused on “getting the policy right….The nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times.”
The President’s comments indicating he was too focused on policy may seem to some like the famous response from an interviewer asking for a job applicant’s biggest flaw: “My biggest flaws are that I work too hard and care too much.” But when it comes to health care, we actually disagree with the President. He HAS been good at telling stories – quite a lot of them actually:
Story #1 – “If You Like Your Plan, You Can Keep It:” The Obama campaign platform promised that “you will not have to change plans. For those who have insurance now, nothing will change under the Obama plan – except that you will pay less.” But the Administration’s own estimates revealed that Obamacare’s onerous regulations will force most firms – and up to 80 percent of small businesses – to give up their current plans, thus subjecting them to costly new mandates that will increase premiums. Millions more seniors will lose access to the Medicare Advantage plans they have and like.
Story #2 – Obamacare Will Cut Premiums by $2,500 per Family: Candidate Obama repeatedly promised premiums would go down by $2,500 – and would go down that amount by this year. But since making that promise, premiums have gone up by nearly $2,400 per family – from $12,680 in 2008 to $15,073 in 2011, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data. And the legislation he signed into law will result in even more massive premium increases. The Congressional Budget Office projects that individual health insurance premiums will increase by $2,100 per family as a result of Obamacare.
Story #3 – No New Taxes on the Middle Class: After telling the squeezed middle class during his campaign that he would not raise “any of your taxes,” President Obama’s health care law broke that promise no fewer than 12 separate times. These massive revenue increases will have a devastating effect over the coming years; destructive taxes on job creators will harm an economy struggling to grow.
Story #4 – Individual Mandate, Part I: In 2008, candidate Obama claimed that penalizing people for not buying health insurance was like “solv[ing] homelessness by mandating everyone buy a house.” Yet Obamacare created an unprecedented federal requirement for all citizens to purchase a product merely because they exist.
Story #5 – Individual Mandate, Part II: In 2009, President Obama told George Stephanopoulos that “For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.” Yet more than two years later, his Administration argued before the Supreme Court that Obamacare’s individual mandate “operates as a tax law.” But President Obama still refuses to acknowledge his individual mandate is a multi-billion dollar tax increase on the middle class – and has gone so far as to criticize others for playing politics regarding the issue.
Story #6 – Protecting Medicare: In an address to Congress in 2009, President Obama claimed he would “protect Medicare.” Yet former Speaker Pelosi admitted in an interview last year that Democrats “took a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare in [Obamacare], the health care bill” to pay for more federal spending. That doesn’t protect Medicare – that undermines Medicare.
Story #7 – Federal Spending on Obamacare: Candidate Obama promised his health care plan would cost “$50-65 billion a year when fully phased in.” However, the Congressional Budget Office now projects that the REAL cost of the coverage expansions will be $250 billion in 2021 and $261 billion in 2022 – more than four times the levels of spending candidate Obama promised.
Story #8 – Containing Health Care Costs: In June 2009, President Obama claimed that any health care legislation must control costs: “If any bill arrives from Congress that is not controlling costs, that’s not a bill I can support. It’s going to have to control costs.” However, according to the Medicare actuary, national health spending will go up by $478,000,000,000, thanks to Obamacare.
Story #9 – Taxing Health Benefits: Candidate Obama promised not to “tax health benefits,” and derided his opponent’s proposals to do so. But Obamacare FORCES people to buy insurance, so the federal government can tax it at a whopping 40 percent rate.
Story #10 – Health Care Negotiations on C-SPAN: Candidate Obama said he would televise all health care negotiations on C-SPAN, but the process leading up to Obamacare was plagued with notorious backroom deals. Worse yet, Obama adviser David Axelrod received a multimillion dollar severance package indirectly paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, as part of its “rock-solid deal” with Democrats in Congress and the Administration.
So yes, President Obama is good at telling stories – quite good, in fact. The problem is that few of them happen to be true.