Photo: White House--Obama editing 2009 health care speech
They’re echoing Hillary Clinton’s words about Benghazi: “What difference does it make?”
But Obamacare makes a huge difference, a negative difference.
The White House claims the negatives are minor because “only” 10 to 12 million Americans with individual policies will lose their current insurance, and that these are dwarfed by a vast number who get government subsidies under Obamacare. But official numbers show 93-million people could lose their current coverage. That’s because many employer-based policies will also be cancelled as inadequate under Obamacare.
Until that next wave of bad news hits, Obama’s team is pushing the notion that presidential truth-telling doesn’t really matter. Only results count, they say, and Obamacare’s winners will outnumber its losers.
That’s another way of saying that honesty is now unimportant to too many politicians, too many in media, and too many voters.
The White House has not abandoned its spin that Obama was truthful when he claimed we could keep insurance that we liked and keep doctors that we liked. But at the same time the White House is quietly promoting this alternate script:
- The backup plan claims that even if there were lies (although not admitting any), these were noble and necessary. They were for the greater good, making health care available and affordable to the millions who get Obamacare subsidies and who qualify for the expanded Medicaid program.
- Yes, it’s unfortunate that a lesser number of millions will pay more and must go through cancellation of coverage that they liked. And it’s especially unfortunate that it may lessen their faith in Obama’s heroic leadership. But that is the price of progress.
- That troublesome website? Don’t worry; it will be fixed soon.
- Those who scream about Obama’s quite-justified actions are radical extremists who cling to outmoded ways of thinking — typical Republican/Tea Party obstructionists. They are the ones who prevented Obama from giving us more details long ago, lest he be taken out of context had he offered those details.
- Obama has three more years on his term; he is immune from elections and immune from a super-majority action such as impeachment. So long as his Democrats control either house of Congress, he can govern by signing executive orders, using deferred prosecution, issuing you-can’t-stop-me federal regulations and other abuses.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
Obama seems to have added an update:
You only have to fool a lot of the people, not all of them.
The Washington Post editorializes, “None of this is an outrage. It’s the predictable result of a defensible policy choice embedded in the reform.”
The New York Times gives a forgiving comment, “Mr. Obama clearly misspoke,”
Alternatively, President Obama would again blame the cancellations on “greedy” insurance companies.
Obama already is doing immeasurable damage to our values by undercutting America’s cherished icons of Presidential honesty: “Honest Abe”; “I cannot tell a lie” George Washington.
Bill Clinton shamed the nation with his “I did not have sex with that woman” statement. His deceit damaged a generation of young Americans. But he did not constantly repeat his lie on nationwide tours like Obama repeated his promise that we could keep our insurance and keep our doctors. Doing so did not cure all the damage, but at least Clinton ultimately admitted his lie and apologized.
President Obama, we’re waiting.
Read more: FULL STORY
No comments:
Post a Comment