Contributed by: filbert Thursday, August 13 2009 @ 11:35 AM CST
Headline too strong? Well, since Obamacare hasn’t actually killed anyone yet, I suppose it is. But that’s the exaggeration in the headline, because Obama is a serial liar regarding health care reform (or, now, the better-focus-group-performing phrase “health insurance reform”).
Heritage Foundation[*1] documents seven lies Obama told in his New Hampshire “town hall” rally. To be fair, two of those seven are “merely” exaggerations and willful misinterpretations of what’s before Congress, not outright lies, so I only include here the Five whoppers Obama is desperately trying to cram down everyone’s throats:
1. “I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter.” This is directly contradicted by candidate Barack Obama’s own website[*2] which quotes Obama at a rally in Ames, Iowa form 2008: “If I were designing a system from scratch I would probably set up a single-payer system. … So what I believe is we should set up a series of choices….Over time it may be that we end up transitioning to such a system.”
2. “Under the reform we’re proposing, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” This statement is also plainly false. Again, as demonstrated above, the true purpose of Obama’s public option is to move Americans out of their private coverage and into government run health care. Independent, non-partisan analysis from the Lewin Group[*3] has confirmed the House bill, H.R. 3200, will do exactly that: About 88.1 million workers would see their current private, employer-sponsored health plan go away and would be shifted to the public plan.
3. “We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.” This is just plain false. The AARP released a statement late yesterday directly contradicting the President[*4] : “While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”
4. “I said I won’t sign a bill that adds to the deficit or the national debt. Okay? So this will have to be paid for.” That is a nice promise, but so was Obama’s October 2008 promise that he would enact a “net spending cut.”[*5] We all know how that has turned out.[*6] The reality is that the Senate still has not figured out how to pay for their bill and the House bill would increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over the next ten years. CBO director Doug Elmendorf has said: “In sum, relative to current law, the proposal would probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.”[*7]
5. “My belief is, is that [Obamacare] should not burden people who make $250,000 a year or less.” Both the House and Senate bills partially pay for Obamacare by imposing “employer mandates” or “pay or play” provisions that require employers to pay higher taxes if (a) they do not offer health insurance, or (b) they offer it but have employees who decline it and instead use the government system. Multiple[*8] studies[*9] have shown that such provisions cause both lower wages and lost jobs for low-income workers.
UPDATE: One more Obama lie, this time from the American College of Surgeons, via Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic[*10] :
— Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts
completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg
amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and
$1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the
evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient
follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation.
Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for
this service.
So, at what point will reasonable, open-minded people simply conclude that Obama just makes $hit up and whatever he says should be taken with the largest grain of salt available?