In an article for Real Clear Politics, Tom Bevan points out something that seems to have gone unnoticed by most. He calls it "Obama's Stunning Admission."
Bevan quotes the president during his appearance at the House Republican retreat:
The last thing I will say, though -- let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we've presented -- and there's some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your -- if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you're not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge. [emphasis added]
Well, isn't that interesting? Beval distills this for us to mean:
If we take this statement at face value, President Obama is admitting the the health care bills passed by either the House or Senate (or both) contained provisions which were "snuck in" - presumably by Democratic members and perhaps on behalf of certain lobbyists - that would have in fact prevented people from keeping their current insurance and/or choosing the doctor they want.
Read the entire article here.
All this time later, after calling Republicans out--after calling Governor Palin out--is President Obama quietly admitting that those who were calling him out were right all along?
In her Facebook note, "Troubling Questions Remain About Obama's Health Care Plan," Governor Palin wrote:
The president is busy assuring us that we can keep our private insurance plans, but common sense (and basic economics) tells us otherwise.
In Governor Palin's "Response to the White House," she stated:
I'm pleased that the White House is finally responding to Republican health care ideas instead of pretending they don't exist.[1] But in doing so President Obama should follow his own sound advice and avoid making "wild misrepresentations".[2] Medicare vouchers would give everyone on Medicare the chance to decide for themselves which health plan to use, rather than leave that decision to government bureaucrats. Such proposals are the kind of health care reform that Republicans stand for: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven.
You'll recall that Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued in September:
Health insurance reform opponents continue to spread myths about components of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act. Their efforts to scare seniors have spared no myth, no method and no misrepresentation. It has gotten so bad, the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp blog wrote, “In political circles, there is a term for the tactic” Republicans are using to frighten seniors about the effects of health insurance reform: "Medi-scare.'' According to The Swamp, Republicans are “capitalizing on fears that Medicare will be undermined… and that the government will force ‘end-of-life' decisions… It's one rhetorical stop short of warning of the "death panels'' that Republican Sarah Palin has spoken of....''
[...]
Myth: Health care reform is a government takeover.
Fact: Under this bill, there is no government takeover of health care. Every American will still be able to choose your own doctor and health insurance plan— and make care decisions with that doctor. The House bill builds on the current system of private health insurance. Indeed, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, private insurance coverage will expand by 16 million under the House reform bill. CBO projects that only a total of about 11 million – or 3 percent of Americans – would choose to enroll in a newly-formed public health insurance plan.
So it wasn't a myth after all, Speaker?
You'll also recall Pelosi rushing through the House a late-night health care vote, to which the governor wrote:
Despite Americans’ decisive message last Tuesday that they reject the troubling path this country has been taking, Speaker Pelosi has broken her own promises of transparency to ram a health “care” bill through the House of Representatives just before midnight. Why did she push the 2,000 page bill this weekend? Was she perhaps afraid to give her peers and the constituents for whom she works the chance to actually read this monstrous bill carefully, if at all? Was she concerned that Americans might really digest the details of a bill that the Wall Street Journal has called “the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced”?
This out-of-control bureaucratic mess will be disastrous for our economy, our small businesses, and our personal liberty. It will slam businesses at a time when we are at double-digit unemployment rates – the highest we’ve seen in a quarter of a century. This massive new bureaucracy will cost us and our children money we don’t have. It will rob Americans of more of our freedom and further hamper the free market.
Make no mistake: we’re on course to have government commandeer one-sixth of our economy. The people who gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now want to run our health care. Think about that.
So after all the warnings Governor Palin gave, and all the denying, name-calling, and arrogance of the Obama administration, President Obama makes the stunning admission that they had, in fact, "snuck in" some of the same things they so passionately refuted?
I agree with Governor Palin: "Think about that."
I feel my inner Joe Wilson coming on.
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