Criticizing his opponent, candidate Obama told a rally of supporters on Oct. 4, 2008: “Senator McCain would pay for his (healthcare) plan, in part, by taxing your healthcare benefits for the first time in history.”
Obama’s campaign ads accused McCain of paying for his health plan with major reductions in Medicare and Medicaid.
Fast forward to the present. Now President Obama plans on both taxing your healthcare benefits and cutting Medicare by $500 billion.
On Jan. 6, 2010, the Associated Press reported “Obama expressed (to House Democrats) his preference for the insurance tax contained in the Senate’s health overhaul bill…”
The AP failed to mention the inconsistency with Obama’s campaign promises and attacks against Sen. McCain.
The Senate version of healthcare “reform” which President Obama has endorsed contains $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. Fifty eight Democrats voted against and defeated an amendment offered by none other than John McCain that would have restored this money to Medicare.
At least eight times candidate Obama promised to televise the healthcare reform negotiations on C-SPAN.
On Nov. 27, 2007, Obama told the Keene Sentinel, “drug and insurance companies will have a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. And we will have a public, uhh, process for forming this plan. It’ll be televised on C-SPAN… it will be transparent and accountable to the American people.”
Twice in January 2008 (once in the CNN debate and again to the San Francisco Chronicle) Obama promised to televise the negotiations telling the Chronicle, “but these negotiations will be on C-SPAN, uhh and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the choices that are being made.”
In Ohio on March 1, 2008, Obama told a town hall style gathering, “Here’s the thing: we’re gonna do all these negotiations on C-SPAN, so the American people will be able to watch these negotiations.”
To an Indiana town hall on April 25, 2008, Obama said, “So I’ll put forward my plan, but what I’ll say is: ‘Look, if you’ve got better ideas I’m happy to listen to them, but all this will be done on C-SPAN, in front of the public.” Later in May, candidate Obama told the St. Petersburg Times the same thing.
On Aug. 8, 2008, at a town hall rally in Virginia, candidate Obama said, “we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who is make – who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.”
At a question and answer session with Google on Nov. 14, 2008, Obama said that the Clinton healthcare reform push in 1993 failed because “they took all their people and all their experts into a room and then they closed the door.” He added “We will work on this process publicly. It’ll be on C-SPAN…it’ll be streaming over the net.”
After months of intense negotiations in both the House and Senate, to date, C-SPAN has been allowed to record just one hour of a healthcare meeting in the East Room of the White House, which C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb described as “kinda just a show horse type of thing.”
Instead, it’s been Obama and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) cutting deals in dark, smoke filled rooms. Cutting deals with lobbyists. Cutting deals with drug companies. Cutting deals with insurance companies. Cutting deals with the American Medical Association.
So much for honesty and transparency. Instead we got shenanigans like the “Louisiana Purchase” where Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu sold her vote for the Senate healthcare bill for $300 million to her state for the state’s Medicaid system.
Don’t forget the “Cornhusker Kickback” where Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (whose 60th vote was needed to pass the Senate health bill) withholding his vote until he got an exemption for his state from $45 million in Medicaid costs, courtesy of the federal taxpayer.
The plan itself is a walking contradiction. The $500 billion in Medicare cuts is supposed to miraculously be used to pay for future Medicare spending as well as current healthcare bill financing. You simply can’t spend the same dollar twice, even in Washington, D.C.
In another bit of accounting sleight of hand, the taxes to fund this healthcare monstrosity are designed to start immediately, but no benefits will be paid out for years. This is Enron-like accounting trick making the bill “revenue neutral” – but after about a decade the costs finally overtake the projected revenue levels and the program is projected to start running a deficit.
President Obama may find that his failure to live up to candidate Obama’s promises doesn’t sit well with voters. It doesn’t sit well with this voter.
Tar Heel Dispatch is written by Tyler Younts, a second-year law student at Campbell University. Younts, who grew up in Farmer, has a passion for writing and for politics and for writing about politics. E-mail comments to news@randolphguide.com or directly to Younts at tlyounts0209@email.campbell.edu
