Obama’s Newest Healthcare Sales Pitch: Lies and Damned Lies… I Mean HIS!

The snake-oil salesman in chief offered “his” healthcare prescriptions this Wednesday night. What he’s been selling the last 5 months is anyone’s guess, but be that as it may, here are my reactions to tonight’s message written as I listened (a sort of delayed live blog, as it were).

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First of all let’s be honest. Anything the President said tonight really isn’t very meaningful. After all, the bills have already been written and are out of committee. No rewrites will be in the offing because of what Obama said tonight. But the fact that he assembled this joint session is evidence that he knows he is in trouble with his healthcare ideas. This was a Hail Mary pass, for sure. Obama started with his assessment of the economy since when he spoke to Congress last. “A full and vibrant economy is still many months away,” he told us. Naturally he claimed that his “bold and decisive” actions pulled us back from the brink. This is a tad hard to believe as we are still seeing deep job losses. Obama opened his healthcare discussion by saying he is “determined to be the last” president to discuss healthcare. This is a bit odd since he is proposing that government take over our healthcare system. Realizing that federalizing our healthcare system certainly means that every president from this point forward will have to deal with healthcare. If “his” plan gets through he most assuredly won’t be the “last” president to talk about healthcare. Many, many more presidents will have this mess to deal with.
The president started with a litany of all the troubles our healthcare system exhibits but one thing was interesting: Now he’s down to 30 million citizens without insurance! In past speeches he’s said it was 46 million. What happened to 16 million people? Curiouser and curiouser. Obama again went on to mouth the claims that he wants bi-partisanship in this bill, but that does not square with the fact that he hasn’t invited any GOP leaders to the White House to discuss healthcare since April!

Here’s his bullet point details for those that have insurance

1. Obama went off on his arguably false claim that “nothing requires you to change” the healthcare you have. This has been proven a lie by many sources. We know that millions of people will lose their insurance the second the “public option” is passed.
2. Obama says he wants no one denied over a pre-existing condition. This is a fiscal impossibility and keep it in the private sector as he claimed he wanted to do.
3. He says the bill will make it illegal to change your coverage or cap your coverage when you need it. So he is telling insurance companies how they will work? Why not have a full government take-over, then?
4. Obama wants a cap on how much a citizen should pay out of pocket for their healthcare. See above.
5. Insurance will be required to cover preventative care at “no extra charge.” What? No extra charge? How does he expect that to work?

For those that don’t have insurance:

1. the plan will offer “quality affordable choices.” Mere empty rhetoric.
2. An insurance exchange will be created (will it reach across state lines? If it doesn’t it can’t work.)
3. Tax credits will be given to small business in four years.
4. Low cost government coverage offered for any citizen that needs it and can’t get their own “in the mean time.” In other words, the “public option.” This claim that thing will change “later” is a bit hard to believe.

Penalties

“My plan” will require individuals to have basic insurance coverage. So, people that don’t want insurance will be criminalized by this president? What, you will be a criminal now for not having insurance!? One of Obama’s lines got an unintentional laugh: “While there remains some significant details to work out,” caused the room to erupt in nervous laughter. “some details”… ya think there Prez?

On Bogus Claims

Death Panels. “Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible,” he said. He then called it an outright lie. Of course, we all know that he is himself lying about this. There can’t BE a government involvement in healthcare without it deciding who does and who does not get coverage. THAT is a defacto “death panel.” The president then went on to say it is a lie that his plan will cover illegals. Amazingly someone in the room yelled out that the president was lying. It is rare that a president has found a Congressional heckler, I have to say. It appears to have been Congressman Joe Wilson from South Carolina. My new hero. Obama claims that “his” plan is not a government take-over of healthcare. This did not sit well with many on the floor. From here he went on to blame insurance companies for much of the healthcare system’s ills. He is here to “hold them accountable,” he claimed. The president demonized insurance companies all night long in this speech. He wants a not-for-profit public option in the insurance exchange. He says it would only be an option for those that have no insurance and that no one will be “forced to have it.” Again, this has been proven a lie many times despite what the president has said and said and said. Once again Obama claimed he’d be willing to work with the GOP to address their problems with his bill. But his past behavior makes the lie to that. Interestingly, many Democrats won’t stand for his lines about saving the insurance industry.

Paying for It

Obama claimed he won’t sign the bill if it adds to the deficit. Then he made the hollow claim that he’ll make spending cuts later if these cuts don’t work. Then he lied about finding a “one trillion dollar deficit” when he “walked into the White House.” This simply isn’t true. HE made that deficit. It was many times smaller when he “walked into” office. On Medicare, Obama claimed that no cuts would come. This is another lie as many cuts are being planned by Congress and cuts are IN the bills. Then he claimed that Medicare “subsidies go to insurance companies to pad their profits.” This is also a lie because Medicare pays at 80% and less of going rates. NO ONE is getting a “padded” profits from Medicare payouts. “I will protect Medicare” the president claimed. Of course, he has no power over Medicare, Congress does. No president can do anything about protecting Medicare. All he can do is veto a bill and Congress can over come that. Obama went on to propose a tax on so-called Cadillac healthcare plans, a punitive tax on high end healthcare plans. Another boring tax-the-rich attack, more class warfare from this president is a disheartening thing. Obama then went on to raise malpractice reform but saying it wasn’t a “silver bullet.” He wants to “move forward on a range of ideas” to address malpractice reform. Obama says he’s moving forward on this “today.” But here is the thing. If his bill is passed as is it won’t have any reform of malpractice. His claims that we will try “experiments” later is a bit hallow. Obama then tried to claim that his plan will cost less than the “tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans” by the previous administration, a dubious claim, indeed. Laughable, actually. Once again, Obama keeps claiming he’ll listen to opposing views. As he said this dozens of Republicans held up their plan, the one that the left keeps claiming hasn’t been offered. This shows that Obama HASN’T listened to those opposing views. In closing, Obama goes for the tear jerker with a Ted Kennedy letter sent him to be read upon his death. Apparently we should “do it for Teddy.” The day we stop hearing about that odious man will be a good day, for sure. Murderer, drunk, woman abuser, anti-American leftist… THIS is the man the left loves? Ted Kennedy truly was “an affront to this nation” (as Obama recognized that his opponents felt about him). All in all, there were some stumbles, there were some amazing spots where the opposition was clearly revealed by those on the floor, and there was a bunch of outright lies by this president. The fact is there was no compromise in this speech, despite what the president kept saying. This was also a strongly anti-capitalist speech. But nothing truly new was in this speech. It was more of the same at every turn. Let us hope that the people listening are not fooled by his lies. Likely, though, the Obamagobsmacked Media will fall all over themselves claiming that his blather was a hit, that “he’s back” and that he’s a winner.