Obama In August 08: We’ll Televise Health Care Negotiations On C-SPAN

Yeah, what do you know, according to Polifact, Obama said this at a Town hall meeting on Aug. 21, 2008, in Chester, Va:

To achieve health care reform, “I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies — they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, 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 are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.”

Well, when did that happen? Did I miss it? Where’s the transparency?

Of course, in case you missed the broad innuendo, Obama was trying to demonize the Insurance companies and drug companies (They won’t be able to buy a chair at the table), and  the televised negotiations would perhaps expose them as the greedy, self interested  money grubbers  that they are.

As Charles Schumer said July 3rd:

“We don’t trust the private insurance companies left to their own devices and neither do the American people.”

Karen Ignagni, the president and CEO of the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), says the health care industry is being demonized by the Democrats:

“A campaign has been launched to demonize health plans and the men and women who work hard every day in their communities to provide health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans,” she said on a conference call with reporters.

“Health insurance reform” has all but replaced “healthcare reform” in Obama’s lexicon as the White House touts its plans to enact strict new requirements on whom insurers must cover and how much they may charge.

“We have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn’t always work well for you,” Obama said last week. “What we need, and what we will have when we pass these reforms, are health insurance consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable.”

Anyhoo, another Obama whopper for the records: no televised negotiations, and no wonder.  Another group that has been missing from the table: Republicans have been all but left out of negotiations.

The Hill reported last month:

Alexander and Gregg said the GOP has submitted several proposals, although they conceded the party has not brought forward a concrete draft as an alternative to the bill being marked up by the HELP Committee. Alexander said the Democratic bill contains too much debt and regulation, and Gregg said it wouldn’t even accomplish President Obama’s stated goal of insuring all Americans.

“The Republican caucus has a whole handful of lollipops, and we keep offering them to the Democrats, saying, ‘Here’s the red one, here’s the blue one, here’s the green one, why don’t you take one and let’s go to work on it,’ ” Alexander said. “Most of them are being rejected out of hand.”

Earlier Wednesday, Reid met with GOP Sens. Mike Enzi (Wyo.), who is the ranking HELP Committee member, Olympia Snowe (Maine), Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) to ask for GOP help to pass the bill. Emerging from the meeting, the Republicans said Reid downplayed any deadline to pass the bill in an effort to allow bipartisan talks more time to bear fruit.

When asked if more time would lead to more bipartisan success, Gregg said he disagreed.

“It appears that more time is making less of a difference on bipartisanship,” he said. “They’ve got 60 votes. They won the election. It appears they’ve decided maybe to go this alone.”

When asked about “poison pills” in the bill, such as a single-payer or public-option component, Gregg said such components are a “non-starter” to Republicans because they would only lead to rationing and price controls.

“On all other things, we’re open,” Gregg said.

John Boehner has a list of the rejected proposals:

Keeping a Bad Bill Bad: Democratic Leaders Block 31 Common-Sense Changes to Health Care Bill

So the next time some lib simpers that the Republicans have no ideas of their own, throw that in their face.

Hat tip: The American Thinker

RELATED:

Five Questions for Health Care Townhalls

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