Obama Increasingly Revealing His Dishonest Side On Health Care

It’s kind of funny.  Obama comes out and says:

“Now, let me just start by setting the record straight on a few things I’ve been hearing out here –“

and then proceeds to lie in the name of correcting the record.  Keith Hennesy goes into detail on 20 significant factual errors from Obama’s Portsmouth town hall (the link is to the first of 20 parts)

One of his most blatant lies was his statement about AARP:

– “We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.  (Applause.)”

– “Well, first of all, another myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits.  We are not.  AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?”

Obama DOESN’T have AARP – one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the country – “on board.”  AARP has pointedly stated that they haven’t yet endorsed ANYTHING.  Obama’s press secretary says Obama merely “misspoke.”  But it was a profoundly self-serving “misspeaking.”  It’s like the grocery store or the bank: why do the errors always seem to be in their favor?

Obama’s out there “addressing ‘outlandish’ and ‘misleading’ claims about health reform.  But my God, he’s one the making the outlandish and misleading claims.

I mean, GEEZ!  This former community organizer has been angered that communities have organized.  And the Democrats are out demonizing conservatives for organizing even as Obama starts up his new “Organizing for America.”  Free speech was the highest form of dissent until Democrats took over everything and started demonizing any dissent.  Where do you go to get such naked chutzpah?

At his incredibly organized Portsmouth town hall event, Obama said:

“OK, I’ve only got time for a couple more questions.  Somebody here who has a concern about health care that has not been raised, or is skeptical and suspicious and wants to make sure that — because I don’t want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants in here.  All right, so I’ve got one right here  — and then I’ll ask the guy with two hands up because he must really have a burning question. (Laughter.)  All right, go ahead.”

The event was so scripted and so packed with Obama-friendly attenders that he literally couldn’t FIND someone who had a critical question.

What he got was this:

Her question:  “I saw — as I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care.  How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that can — that help more of us?”

And if a little girl that cute says that people “outside” are mean, then how can you possibly NOT believe here?

The Boston Globe reported:

Eleven-year-old Julia Hall asked: “How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that can — that help more of us?”

The question opened the door for the president to respond to what he called an “underlying fear” among the public “that people somehow won’t get the care they need.”

Well, who was this little girl, who had been “randomly chosen” to ask a question after being “randomly picked by a computer” to attend the event?

Julia’s mother [Kathleen Manning] was an early Obama supporter and donor in Massachusetts during the presidential election, so she had previously met First Lady Michelle Obama, the Obama daughters Sasha and Malia, and Vice President Joe Biden.

In fact, she actually was a top mucky-muck in the Massachusetts Obama campaign operation.

What a shock that such a little girl with such a liberal Obama-supporting pedigree would be “randomly” selected to ask such a blatant set-up question (How come you’re so wonderful and the people who oppose your plan so evil?).  What are the odds that THAT kind of a coincidence would occur?

What are the odds that all the mean people with the mean signs somehow didn’t end up getting their names drawn in that “random” drawing so they could be INSIDE instead?

Given the fact that Obama is so scripted that he doesn’t even sneeze unless he’s told to by his teleprompter, pretty darn good.

The blatant audacity of hypocrisy.  These people are demonizing folks who are coming out to tell anybody who will hear them that they don’t want this terrible heath care bill as “plants” and “orchestrated” and “organized” (not to mention “angry mobs” and “racists” and “Nazis”).  But the plant simple truth is that these people are so phony that they can only assume that everybody else must be as phony as they are.

As I’ve mentioned before, we get Obama attending a phony, controlled, contrived, choreographed, orchestrated, organized, “Astroturf” town hall filled with plants even as his attack dogs demonize protesters as being “plants” and saying things like:

“I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter”

when he is on record having said:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.”

and he is on the record as having said:

“The very first promise I made on this campaign was that as president I will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office.”

“I was for that thing before I said I had never been for that thing.”

You keep on clearing up them “misconceptions” from the other side, Barry Hussein.  Never mind all of your lies.

According to a Gallup poll released yesterday, the demonization of ObamaCare protesters has made 34% of Americans more sympathetic to the protests, versus only 21% who are less sympathetic of the protests.  Independents are sympathetic to the protesters by a more than than 2-1 margin.  And 61% of Americans believe the protests are “appropriate.”  Sorry, Nancy Pelosi.  I guess your riding in on that broom of yours to throw out swastikas and call Americans “un-American” isn’t working so good for you.

Harry Reid, the corresponding Democrat leader of the Senate, called town hall protesters “evil mongers,” and was clearly quite proud of his creativity.  I hope he’s as proud of his next job after he gets voted out of office.

Every poll is showing that support for the Democrats’ health care bill is plunging by the day.  Polls are showing that Obama’s own numbers are plunging massively, primarily as a result of his support for ObamaCare and for his demonization of average Americans who oppose his plan.  Obama now has only 47% support.  He no longer speaks for the country.  And he won’t listen as the country shouts at him.

But the less support Obama and the Democrats have, the more rabid they are in demonizing more and more and more ordinary Americans who oppose their agenda.

Democrats keep pounding on conservatives for “organizing.”  But 65% of independent voters now disapprove of Obama’s performance.

The Democrats are lying about their health care bill, and they are lying about the people who are increasingly opposing it.

Obama said:

Now, one of the things you’ve been doing in your campaign to change the situation is you’ve been striving for bipartisanship. I think it’s a wonderful idea, but my question is, if the Republicans actively refuse to participate in a reasonable way with reasonable proposals, isn’t it time to just say we’re going to pass what the American people need and what they want, without the Republicans?  (Applause.)

But not only have Republicans offered a plan for health care reform, but Fox News reported the irony that a Republican was actually offering a proposal at the very moment that Obama was claiming Republicans weren’t offering “reasonable proposals.”  And as for “reasonable,” there frankly aint a whole ought of Americans left who think YOUR proposal is reasonable, Mister President.

What do Republicans want?  They agree on seeking to implement cost control measures.  They want Congress to reign in the out-of-control and about-to-become-the-Titanic Medicare before we try to nationalize the remainder of our health care system.  They want to introduce “tort reform” such as “loser pays” or limiting huge “pain and suffering awards” (while keeping awards for actual damages) to prevent the lawsuits that are eating our medical industry alive.  They want to allow private insurance companies to be able to compete with one another across state lines.  There are 1300 private health care insurers; why not provide them with competitive incentive to lower their own costs?  They want to limit access to free health care to citizens rather than illegal aliens.  Republicans would like to see an end to federal and state mandates that require (as one examples) single males to purchase prenatal care and pap smear coverage which add to the costs of plans.  It’s not like the Republicans don’t have plenty of proposals; and it’s not like they’re not quite “reasonable” for a statist who wants government control above anything else.

Right now, the Democrats and Barack Obama are doing virtually everything they can – portraying Republicans as offering nothing, demonizing protesters, holding carefully orchestrated events of their own, ridiculing the notion of “death panels” while ignoring the fact that their plan WILL lead to rationing of care and passive euthansia – rather than actually BOTHERING TO DEAL WITH THE FACTS ON HEALTH CARE.

Sarah Palin was demonized for using the term “death panels,” but the egg is on the faces of those who demonized her:  she won, they lost.   The “death panel” language has been dropped from the Senate version.  And word is coming out that many Democrats are backing away from the government system that would actually result in “death panels” altogether.

But you have to understand that Barack Obama is the president who told a woman that her mother might be better off “taking the painkiller” than having life-prolonging surgery.  Barack Obama is the man who said this about his own grandmother having a hip replacement that would prolong her quality of life:

Q: And it’s going to be hard for people who don’t have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So that’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that’s also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

Q: So how do you — how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: …you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

In other words, a death panel.

It’s buried deep within the beaurocracy, but don’t think it won’t become a part of any “public option.”

And Barack Obama is the man who appointed top level officials such as Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, John Holdren, and Cass Sunstein.  Cass Sunstein, by the way, has introduced a concept known as the “nudge.”  Nudging and tweaking the vaugeries of the law to impose the socialist agenda.

They can blame Republicans all they want, but given their total control over government, it’s THEIR OWN FAULT that they don’t have a health care bill that isn’t anything but a twisted ideological monstrosity.

Stop the lies and the demagoguery, Mr. President.  Stop the partisan ideology.  If you really want to reform health care, stop demonizing the authentic outrage American people and actually listen to them.  Make your reform geninely bipartisan, and don’t offer any more “change” than the people are willing to accept.

Obama Lies About AARP Endorsement At Bogus Town Hall Event

Obama has told so many lies regarding health care that it is positively unreal.  But here’s yet another:

Rachel Martin and Jake Tapper report:

President Obama today suggested that the health care reform legislation for which he’s pushing has been endorsed by the American Association of Retired Person.

“We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors,” the president said.

At another point he said: “Well, first of all, another myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits.  We are not.  AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?”

The problem?

The AARP hasn’t endorsed any plan yet.

The country’s largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 issued a statement after the event saying, “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.”

AARP is a lot less likely to be rushing in to endorse anything after getting their heads bit off by their own membership:

Last week, AARP officials speaking at a forum in Dallas walked out after several seniors interrupted the meeting with critical questions and comments.

Some AARP members say they are so outraged that they’ve taken to tearing up their membership cards and firing off heated letters to the organization’s CEO.

Recent polling by FOX News shows seniors, many of whom are on Medicare, don’t want a major overhaul — 93 percent rate their current coverage as good or excellent, and 56 percent say they oppose the creation of a government-run option for all Americans.

Other groups representing seniors say they aren’t surprised by the recent backlash.

“We get letters every single day from people that are very upset about this bill and about the AARP supporting it,” said Stuart Barton, president of the American Seniors Association. “So I don’t blame them for coming back and saying they are going to tear up their AARP cards.”

It’s understandable that many members would get the mistaken impression that AARP is backing the ObamaCare plan, given their frankly weaselly behavior as they waffled one way under White House pressure, and then waffled the other under their memberships’ pressure.  But they don’t have a massive White House staff to sort out the actual facts, and they aren’t expected to be held accountable the way the President of the United States of America is to be held accountable.

President Obama is supposed to tell the truth; not advance falsehoods.

Obama is trying to say, “Seniors don’t have to be worried because AARP wouldn’t endorse a plan that hurts seniors.”

And number one, even AARP’s own members clearly don’t accord AARP that much integrity and good will.  And number two, AARP HASN’T endorsed Obama’s plan.  So I guess we’re back to, “Seniors should be worried.”

An older woman at Arlen Spector’s town hall today said:

“I’m sick of the lies.  I don’t like being lied to.  I don’t like being lied about.“

But the Democrats just keep lying, and keep lying about the people who they’re lying to.

We get Obama attending a phony, controlled, choreographed town hall filled with plants even as his attack dogs demonize protesters as being “plants” and saying things like:

“I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter”

when he is on record having said:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.”

and he is on the record as having said:

“The very first promise I made on this campaign was that as president I will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office.”

It’s one thing for a president to say one thing, admit his mistake, tell the American people that he has changed his mind, and then specifically tell us what he will do and what he will now not accept.  But that’s not what our weasel-in-chief does; rather, he lies about what he’s in fact said without ruling the previously-said thing out.  Instead, concerned citizens are left to worry about whether the president was lying earlier, or whether he’s lying now.  An they have every reason to believe he’s lying now.

Obama said:

Well, the — I’ve seen some of those signs. (Laughter.)  Let me just be specific about some things that I’ve been hearing lately that we just need to dispose of here.  The rumor that’s been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for “death panels” that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we’ve decided that we don’t — it’s too expensive to let her live anymore.  (Laughter.)  And there are various — there are some variations on this theme.

But, again, Obama just dismissively laughs off something that is actually quite serious.

Maybe he shouldn’t have told a woman regarding her aged but healthy mother:

“Maybe you’re better off, uhh, not having the surgery, but, uhh, taking the painkiller.”

He won’t pull the plug on grandma; he’ll just withhold lifesaving surgery and give her a pain pill.  It’s not active euthanasia – at least not yet; it’s passive euthanasia.  But grandma ends up just as dead.

During an October debate with John McCain, Obama said, regarding his foreign policy:

“Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. If I’m interested in figuring out my foreign policy, I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House.”

So when we want to know what Obama wants in his foreign policy, we have to look at who he is associating with, and who he is surrounding himself with in the White House.  And Barack Obama has surrounded himself with some people who hold some pretty terrifying ideas concerning health care.

Obama has to explain why he appointed Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel as both his health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and as a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.  Emanuel has said JUST THIS YEAR:

“When implemented, the Complete Lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated… The Complete Lives system justifies preference to younger people because of priority to the worst-off rather than instrumental value.”

He explained:

“Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years. Treating 65-year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not.”

Dr. Emanuel has said:

Many commentators note that 27 to 30 percent of the Medicare budget is spent on the 5 percent of Medicare patients who die each year.

“Many have linked the effort to reduce the high cost of death with the legalization of physician-assisted suicide…. Decreasing availability and increasing expense in health care and the uncertain impact of managed care may intensify pressure to choose physician-assisted suicide” and “the cost effectiveness of hastened death is as undeniable as gravity. The earlier a patient dies, the less costly is his or her care.”

And he has said:

Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.

Then there is Cass Sunstein, whom Barack Obama appointed to the position of Regulatory Czar.  Sunstein wrote in the Columbia Law Review in January 2004:

“I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people.”

Barack Obama’s Regulatory Czar explained:

“If a program would prevent fifty deaths of people who are twenty, should it be treated the same way as a program that would prevent fifty deaths of people who are seventy? Other things being equal, a program that protects young people seems far better than one that protects old people, because it delivers greater benefits.”

Let us not forget Obama’s director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren, who has openly advocated forced abortions and sterilizations as a population growth solution.  Seriously, is it a stretch that he likewise supports the passive euthanasia advocated by Emanuel and Sunstein to control population growth?

I am willing to entertain the notion that the final health care bill will not include “death panels.”  But, given the people Obama has appointed who are serving as architects of the health care legislation, he certainly shouldn’t get the benefit of the doubt.  Because these men whom Obama appointed have written some very frightening things that very much suggest a “death panel.”  Ezekiel,  Sunstein, and Holdren are just three very real Obama officials who have written some very real things that would entail the very real deaths of many very real American citizens.

And Obama’s mockingly laughing at “death panels” is not very funny given his appointments of Ezekiel Emanuel and Cass Sunstein.  Mr. Obama, don’t you dare mock us for being afraid over the writings of men that you appointed.

The prospect of bureaucrats having more power to make more decisions over more vital aspects of peoples’ lives is frightening.  It should not be glossed over.  Obama and Democrats assuring us that they won’t accept any plan that creates a deficit when the plan they left behind in August creates another trillion dollars in deficits (and probably many times that, given the CBO’s tendency to massively underestimate costs) is frightening.  And nonchalant promises don’t hold any water.  Assuring Americans that a “public option” won’t push people into government care when the bill in fact does the exact opposite is immoral.

And Democrat politicians who casually dismiss these issues and others are the reason for all the anger.  People are realizing that there lives may literally be at stake – and they are in absolutely no mood to be played with.