Most Transparent Health ‘Reform’ In History So Secretive Even Democrats Are ‘In The Dark’

Barack Obama promised to put the health care debate on C-SPAN so that everybody could be informed about and engaged with the process.

“That’s what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process,” Obama said at a debate in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008.

The special interests and lobbyists, he said, “will resist anything that we try to do. … And the antidote to that is making sure that the American people understand what is at stake.”

Obama promised:

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.”

Not negotiating behind closed doors.  Bringing all parties together.  Broadcasting the negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see.

Those were the words of Barack Hussein Obama, documented liar, fraud, and hypocrite.

In the age of Obama, lobbying and lobbyists has doubled.  Now THERE are some jobs Obama has “created or saved.”  And the leftist labor unions – who want everybody to pay massively more so they can get more – don’t want to pay taxes that they expect everybody else to pay.

On December 6, Obama went to the Capitol to push health care in a closed door session for a meeting with Democrat Senators in which he excluded Republicans and excluded the press:

At the Capitol during a rare Sunday session of the Senate, Obama delivered a closed-door pep talk to the fractious Democratic caucus that lasted about 45 minutes. Deep divisions remain over abortion coverage, but there was hope for compromise on whether the government should directly offer health insurance in competition with private companies.“They’re going to get it done,” Obama said as he left. He avoided specifics in the meeting with senators and took no questions.

How “open” and “transparent” of him.

Here’s the blunt, simple reality:

Washington, Oct 21 – For days now, a small group of Democrats in Congress and members of the Obama Administration have been meeting behind closed doors on Capitol Hill to hammer out the details of their costly government takeover of health care. This is despite President Obama’s repeated pledges on the campaign trail last year that these discussions would be open and televised.  One Capitol Hill newspaper has called these secret talks “a slap at … the taxpayers who will be asked to foot the bill for whatever reform plan does get adopted.” Now Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) has introduced a resolution demanding that these critical negotiations be conducted in the open “under the watchful eye of the American people.” With the fate of one-sixth of our economy in the balance, anything less than full transparency is unacceptable.

And now we find that Republicans – who have been shut out all along – are not the only ones who have been excluded in this byzantine, twisted, closed-door process:

Sen. Durbin says he’s ‘in the dark’ on possible healthcare reform compromise
By Eric Zimmermann – 12/11/09 12:33 PM ET

The 10 Democratic senators who crafted a healthcare compromise are keeping its details a secret, says Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Friday.

Responding to a complaint by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that Republicans haven’t been told what’s in the new bill, Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, responded that he’s in the same position.

“I would say to the senator from Arizona that I’m in the dark almost as much as he is. And I’m in the leadership,” Durbin said on the Senate floor.

Stop and think about it.  This process has become so byzantine, so closed, and so secretive, that even the #2 Democrat in the Senate is completely in the dark as to what is going on.  Ten Democrats – and a whopping load of special interests – are formulating the takeover of 1/6th of the American economy.

This came out of a discussion between Senators John McCain and Dick Durbin.

Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my friend about the situation as it exists right now? Right now, no Member on this side has any idea as to the specifics of the proposal the majority leader, I understand, has sent to OMB for some kind of scoring. Is that the way we want to do business, that a proposal that will be presented to the Senate sometime next week and voted on immediately–that is what we are told–is that the way to do business in a bipartisan fashion? Should we not at least be informed as to what the proposal is the Senate majority leader is going to propose to the entire Senate within a couple days? Shouldn’t we even know what it is?

Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator from Arizona, I am in the dark almost as much as he is, and I am in the leadership. The reason is, because the Congressional Budget Office, which scores the managers’ amendment, the so-called compromise, has told us, once you publicly start debating it, we will publicly release it. We want to basically see whether it works, whether it works to continue to reduce the deficit, whether it works to continue to reduce the growth in health care costs.

We had a caucus after this was submitted to the Congressional Budget Office, where Senator Reid and other Senators who were involved in it basically stood and said: We are sorry, we can’t tell you in detail what was involved. But you will learn, everyone will learn, it will be as public information as this bill currently is on the Internet. But the Congressional Budget Office has tied our hands at this point putting it forward. Basically, what I know is what you know, having read press accounts of what may be included.

Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my friend from Illinois–and by the way, I would like to do this again. Perhaps when he can get more substance into many of the issues.

Mr. DURBIN. Same time, same place tomorrow?

Mr. McCAIN. I admit these are unusual times. But isn’t that a very unusual process, that here we are discussing one-sixth of the gross national product; the bill before us has been a product of almost a year of sausage-making. Yet here we are at a position on December 12, with a proposal that none of us, except, I understand, one person, the majority leader, knows what the final parameters are, much less informing the American people. I don’t get it.

Durbin acknowledges that Republicans have been kept completely in the dark (and fed on horse sh*t) because even he himself – the number two man in the Democrat Senate – has been kept in the dark.  He blames the Congressional Budget Office – because it’s either the CBO, or the Democrats, and he will not blame the Democrats.

Newsflash: the CBO does not have the power to prevent Democrats from releasing all the details of the Democrats’ bill.  Democrats have refused to release the details of the Democrats’ bill.

We are in a situation in which a tiny handful of Democrats are writing up an ideological and partisan takeover of a whopping chunk of the economy.  And if you think these people have any integrity at all, you need to reread this article, because you clearly didn’t understand what is coming out of Washington.

Tags: behind closed doors, bringing all parties together, C-SPAN, Capital, closed-door, dick durbin, doubled, in the dark, John McCain, lobbyists, loibbying, negotiating behind closed doors, negotiations, roadcasting negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see, specifics