A New York Times reporter has confirmed that President Obama made a deal with hospital lobbyists back in August of 2009, that promised there would be no public option.
Obama, on many occasions had made speeches supporting a public option including in his State of the Union message, but this explains why he never followed through
Nancy Pelosi had said only a few days ago that a public option wouldnt be in the House bill largely because Obama never fought for it,, never pushed for it and never supported it. And now we know why. Because of this backroom deal with lobbyists he made back in August promising to dump the public option.
When Obama did an interview with PBS after the senate had passed the Baucus bill which had no public option, Obama lied when he asked if felt not getting the public option was a loss. He said that he had never campagined for the public option and it was never an important part of his plan. He also said the bill was 95% of what he wanted. .But YouTubes of his speeches and own campaign literature popped up on liberal web sites proving that was untrue.
The New York Times had reported in August of 2009, that Obama was meeting privately with lobbyists at a time when the Baucus Committee was trying to hammer out a bill. This explains why Obama never tried to lean on Joe Lieberman to get the 60th vote needed to pass the Baucus bill with a public option.
But Obama's deceit is not new . During the Democratic primaries he was caught red handed in a lie that the Canadian government called NAFTAgate where Obama had promised the people of Ohio he would get rid of NAFTA if he was elected while sending Austan Goolsbee an economic advisor to the Canadian Embassy to tell them to ignore Obama's public statements, that he didn't mean a word of it, it was all politics. The minutes of the meeting were leaked to the Associated Press who published them but the mainstream media chose to ignore it and Obama supporters looked the other way. The same people who are now being stung by Obama's duplicity on the public option.
As for the fate of the public option,the votes in the senate are there to pass it, as the video below shows..
In New York, insurance premiums are twice the national average. And the public option is the best way to bring costs down. What people who want the public option can do now is call Pelosi at the number listed below and they can also call New York congressman Jerold Nadler, an influential member of the House on health care reform,and take the matter out of Obama's hands and out of the hands of lobbyists, and try to pressure Pelosi into including a public option in the House bill. If they do the votes are there in the senate to pass it. As for Obama, he has a lot of explaining to do, and he will. It remains to be seen how much of it his supporters will buy this time.
Of course Obama lied, and of course he struck a backroom deal. Lets be mature about health care, there is too much money at stake to keep pretending that we are talking about peoples health! The entire health care debate has been about how we can keep insurance companies making huge profits. So far so good, so what, the insurance companys picked the right man in Obama.
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Where's the link to the NY Times story? Ain't working.
regroce: you need only click the underlined links in the above article!
Of course Obama lied, and of course he struck a backroom deal. Lets be mature about health care, there is too much money at stake to keep pretending that we are talking about peoples health! The entire health care debate has been about how we can keep insurance companies making huge profits. So far so good, so what, the insurance companys picked the right man in Obama.
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