Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Tallying Promises on Health Care

At his press conference yesterday, the President’s comments connecting the tax debate to last year’s controversy surrounding the government-run plan drew heavy attention from the media.  But later in that same exchange with the Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman, the President had this to say: “Take a tally.  Look at what I promised during the campaign.  There’s not a single thing that I’ve said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do.  And if I haven’t gotten it done yet, I’m still trying to do it.”

Having been thus invited, let’s examine the President’s campaign promises on health care to see how his actions stack up with his rhetoric (or, to put it more colorfully, Tally-ho!)

  1. Keeping Your Plan:  Candidate Obama promised “no, you will not have to change plans.”  Instead, President Obama’s health care law will cause half of all firms to lose their current coverage, according to the Administration’s own estimates.  And the Administration’s actuaries have slashed projected enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans in half, meaning many seniors who like their current plan will be forced to change plans – if they even have access to a private plan at all.
  2. Lower Premiums:  Candidate Obama promised – repeatedly – he would save families $2,500 per year on premiums.  Instead, President Obama’s health care law will cause individual market insurance premiums to go UP by $2,100 per family, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
  3. Government-Forced Health Insurance:  Candidate Obama questioned an individual mandate as an attempt to “garnish people’s wages,” but President Obama signed a health care law forcing all individuals to purchase government-defined health insurance.  Despite his earlier comments about garnishing people’s wages, President Obama “absolutely” rejected the notion that the individual mandate represents a tax increase on the middle class – only for the Administration to argue the exact opposite in defending legal challenges to the law.
  4. Reducing Health Care Costs:  Candidate Obama promised that his plan would save money “by reducing health care costs.”  Instead, President Obama’s health care law raises costs by $311 billion, according to the Administration’s actuaries.
  5. Spending:  Candidate Obama promised that his plan “will cost taxpayers between $50-65 billion a year when fully phased in.”  Instead, the Congressional Budget Office found that President Obama’s law will spend a whopping $214 billion on insurance subsidies in 2019 alone – nearly four times the amount candidate Obama pledged – and could lead to an extra $115 billion in spending on the law’s 159 boards, bureaucracies, and programs.
  6. Transparency:  Candidate Obama promised to televise the health care negotiations on C-SPAN.  Instead, President Obama so ignored this pledge that Speaker Pelosi thought it was a joke.
  7. Paying for Reform:  Candidate Obama promised that his plan would be paid for “by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 per year, as they are scheduled to do.”  No comment necessary.

A final perspective comes from President Obama himself, in his comments to Barbara Walters a few weeks ago about deficit reduction plans:

The problem is that historically, at least lately, there’s been a lot of rhetoric on all sides that, that pretends that somehow we can have something for nothing.  That we can, you know, fund all our important programs, maintain our safety net, make sure Social Security and Medicare are safe, have, you know, a Defense Department that gets everything that it wants, and we don’t end up having to pay for it. And that’s going to be an area where I think we’ve got to have an honest conversation.

In short, the American people were promised a plan that would cut premiums $2,500, let them keep their current coverage, wouldn’t force them to buy an insurance policy, and would cost only $50 billion or so a year.  Instead, the American people were given a 2,700 page health care law that raises premiums, takes away their current coverage, forces them to buy new government-approved insurance, and will cost more than $200 billion per year.  When it comes to broken promises, the tally is overwhelming.  So who’s really kidding whom here?