-By Warner Todd Huston
Supposed conservative talk show host, Michael Smerconish, let President Obama lie repeatedly in last week’s celebrated one-on-one interview. Obama laid his lies right out there and Smerconish didn’t say a word. But the talk radio host isn’t the only one to sit back and let this president get away with it. In fact, not a single soul has confronted President Obama on these out right lies that he’s made a staple of his snake-oil sales pitch for heatlhcare “reform.”
Early in the interview, Smerconish asked Obama about the fear many Americans have that deep down he really wants a single payer, socialist healthcare system, a government takeover of our healthcare. Here was the president’s reply.
Now, as far as health care goes, I’ve consistently said I would love the private marketplace to be handling this without any government intervention. The problem is it’s not working. What we’re seeing is about 14,000 folks lose their health insurance every single day. We are seeing health care inflation go up about twice as fast as regular inflation. Businesses are being crippled by it. Small businesses especially have almost no access to the marketplace because they’ve got no leverage with insurance companies.
So all we’ve said is let’s keep the private system intact, but let’s make sure that people who right now can’t get health insurance — about 46 million — that they’re able to buy into the market. And number two, let’s have some consumer protections to make sure that those of us who have health insurance don’t end up getting a bad deal because we didn’t read the fine print and we think that we have coverage; when we finally get sick and we need it, it turns out that we’re vulnerable because insurance companies aren’t operating in the interests of their customers.
Actually, the president lied several times here.
Let’s start with the first line. Obama claimed he’s “consistently said” that he wants the private marketplace to handle America’s healthcare. This is an outright lie. What he has said is that he wants to eliminate that marketplace. He also said that he does, indeed, want a single payer plan and that he expected to have one up and running at the end of his first term.
In fact, here he is, in his own words, telling audiences that he wants to eliminate private healthcare plans.
Yet, Smerconish allowed him to say that he’s “consistently said” that he wants the private sector to do a good job with healthcare? It’s just a flat out lie.
Then there is the other lie that Obama has made a constant talking point.
let’s make sure that people who right now can’t get health insurance — about 46 million — that they’re able to buy into the market.
There is no 46 million Americans that are somehow barred from buying healthcare insurance. It is a flat out lie and it is one he’s “consistently said” over and over again. It is also one that the Old Media has consistently allowed him to spout without ever challenging him.
The truth is that large numbers of these uninsured are only temporarily uninsured while they change jobs. Also, 20 percent are uninsured by choice — young people who don’t want to pay insurance for heatlhcare they won’t use, for instance — and another 25 percent are eligible for current government programs but just haven’t bothered to enroll for whatever reason, whether ignorance of the programs or simple disinterest in them. On top of that are the millions of illegal aliens that government lumps into this number and it is easy to see that this so-called 46 million uninsured is a very misleading figure, indeed.
Yet, Obama uses this liar’s statistic nearly every time he hawks his government takeover of healthcare and I have yet to hear him challenged on this demonstrably false statistic.
So, why do they let this president get away with it? Why do they never confront him over his obvious lies? I wish I could say.
(Cross posted at HealthcareHorseRace.com.)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as NewsBusters.org, RightWingNews.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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Here’s a theory. They are afraid. As we are moving quite rapidly toward a totalitarian dictatorship, they are afraid to confront and challenge the “dictator.” They don’t want to be the first ones that get put in front of the firing squads.
Self preservation, eh? Maybe, maybe.