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The White House Fights Back Against the Right’s Lies and Disinformation
Aug 4th, 2009 | 16 responses
Linda Douglass, the White House communications director for health care reform, gives the facts in response to the current GOP dirty war against Pres. Obama’s health care reform package.
Here is the video:
Kudos to the Obama administration for a response that is simultaneously forceful and professional. Very classy.
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16 Responses to “The White House Fights Back Against the Right’s Lies and Disinformation”
I suppose you smiled and nodded your head up and down (as expected) as you watched and listened, too.
I think what the unexcerpted videos show is that Obama was in fact a supporter of single payer healthcare, but over time he has moved away from that. When you combine that with other Dems who have openly stated that a public option plan would be the best way to get to single payer (since the public won't accept it outright), it's understandable that people are skeptical of Obama's claim that that's not the ultimate goal here.
I don't blame the WH for pushing back against this, as Obama's credibility is on the line. He's really backing himself into a corner now though with other assurances he's made (“If you like the coverage you have now, you'll be able to keep it,” and “We will not raise anyone's taxes who makes under $250,000.) If it proves that these promises will be broken, a huge amount of public trust in him will be gone.
“anyone [...] who makes under $250,000″
“will not see their taxes increase by a single dime”
“And he was right, very strictly speaking: It’s going to be many, many, many billions of dimes.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB200014240529702…
“a public option plan would be the best way to get to single payer (since the public won't accept it outright)”
I have to wonder aloud, again, what part of incrementalism (and indirection) some people misunderstand.
Kathy, this is a sincere question and I would appreciate a sincere answer:
Is there any form of disagreement or dissent towards the idea of single-payer or “public option” health care reform that you would not condemn as “lies”, “dirty war”, or some other intolerably out-of-bounds behavior?
It's a real shame how some folks just aren't willing buy into the fear and propaganda game. The old fable about the boy who cried wolf is probably a little too deep for today's culture (DLS), but even now there are limits to what kind of BS can be slung around with a straight face. By the way, I agree with your comments CS… which I think is a noteworthy event.
“probably a little too deep for today's culture (DLS)”
You do yourself a disservice, even if you don't realize it, when you look upward and like like this.
[sigh; winding up...]
While at the same time –
“what kind of BS can be slung around with a straight face”
Such as the lies about the “public option” (itself an attempt to avoid as well as diminish public concern about federal takeover of health care, especially current-Democratic-style) such as that it would make its victims the private insurers become “honest” due to “fair competition” …
… “fair competition” [sic] that the fools believe is fair but is similar to but worse than games like this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702…
[BAM! *crumple*]
It would have been helpful if the White House communications director had explained why Obama had changed his opinions on single-payer since 2003 instead of just dismissing it as disinformation.
[...] spot, as well as Atlas Shrugs, Q&O, . MyDD sees nothing wrong with it, nor does “The Moderate Voice.” Go [...]
Linda Douglass has her work cut out for her that's for sure. The amount of bogus info out there parading as “news” is epidemic. Add that to the phony town hall meeting phenomenon and an MSM that only cares about sensation, and what you end up with is a fairly clueless electorate. Not much new about that I reckon, but it's a plug for more education… in how to THINK.
JSpencer- at the risk of killing the good karma of you agreeing with my earlier comment, don't you think DaGoat has a point? What is the explanation for Obama's change of position on this? I've heard him sort of articulate it (that it would be too disruptive and would put too many people out of work in an economic climate where we can't afford to do so, if I understood him correctly) but why didn't they include that as the explanation for the dissonance between the two clips? Obama clearly did change his position, and instead of explaining it they chose to accuse people of lying about it. Who do we believe…Douglass or our lying ears?
My guess is that for them to explain Obama's shift risks angering and alienating the single payer purists- many of whom prefer to believe that Obama really is pushing this public option plan as a trojan horse. But they can't have it both ways- either piss those people off or the people on the other side of the debate are not going to continue to believe that his newer stance is being promoted in good faith.
I'm naturally skeptical towards the “sky is falling” e-mails that circulate. Too often, sites like Snopes.com debunk them, if the sender had bothered to look it up. But a recent e-mail with bullet points on what the recently passed House bill contains got my attention. So, using Google, I found the bill and went to the page numbers referenced. Of course, any bill has a lot of legalese, but five of the bullet points that I randomly checked out were confirmed by the language of the bill. That isn't scare-mongering; that isn't a dirty law. That's just shining light on what a bill more than 1,000 pages long actually says. Yes, the “devil” is in the details. No, the GOP hasn't offered an alternative, but how often do opposition parties get the time of days from the majority, even if they do so?
So, Dems, show us a good bill that doesn't:
1. Set up an unelected health board to say what I can and can't have;
2. Effectively shut down competition from private companies;
3. Pay all doctors the same amount, whether specialists or not;
4. Take 1,000 pages to put into effect — Make it 1/5 of that, so our reps can at least have read what
they're voting on, for Pete's sake.
What chance do you think Obama would have had trying to push through a single payer system? Look at the amount of flak and demonization he runs into with a mere public option! He has to be a pragmatist, regardless of the fact that many of his supporters want to see him as an idealist, and he has to be willing to flex to some degree if he wants to see reform at all. He's in a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation, but he's smart enough to realize this… as are his more grounded supporters.
@@If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.@@
Sorry, DaGoat, but that’s a borderline comment you made there. I’ll be needing to report you to Big Brother.
JSpencer- Obama has 0% chance of getting single payer passed, and he knows it, and that's to his credit.
It's also to his credit that he sees a major real (not political) problem with pushing it through- that it would throw millions more people out of work.
The question that he hasn't been asked though, is whether or not he still thinks the ultimate goal should be to get to single payer incrementally. Interestingly, the longer version of the clip that the WH put up as 'context', was not included- they left out where he said he can envision getting to the point in 10, 15, or 20 years (it's not clear to me though from what I've seen whether he was saying that we can get to the point of having single payer, or just that he can envision no more employer based health insurance…the latter would be fine by me.)
I think that if the administration wants to use Obama's popularity to help sell this plan, they can't leave the question unanswered- does Obama want the public option to keep the private market honest but not to drive them out of business in order to usher in single payer? The response so far has been his promise that 'if you like what you have now, you can keep it.' However, that rings false because there are clearly provisions in the bills that have come out which will NOT allow everyone to keep what they currently have, at least not in a few years.
The way I see it, they can continue a losing strategy and pretend that all opposition to this plan is astroturfed, or they can answer legitimate questions and find ways to reassure them about the very real concerns they have. When Obama has expressed his own support for single payer and an ambiguous reference to 'getting there in 10 or 15 years', and other prominent Dems are telling single payer purists that the plan IS a Trojan horse, he's either got to come out clearly against that kind of incrementalism or realize that this isn't going to fly with opponents of single payer.
Bwahahahahahaa Comedy at its best.
“Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
A friend came up with this idea and I did it too, I sent them a link to H.R 3200 explaining what was “fishy” about it.
Also sent along this quote:
“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,”
–Barack Obama
Looks like the left wing of the Democratic party doesn't like swallowing its own prescribed medicine.
Healthcare reform is possible, this Bill is not, its full of fail on so many levels. The main problems I have are in no particular order:
1) Funds abortion with taxpayer money (I'm technically pro-choice BTW, at least until a fetus is capable of producing a mental synapse at which point I become pro-life, just don't believe in imposing my views on the wallets of others in this matter)
2) Denies freedom of choice after initial period, and the public option becomes a mandate after that.
3) Infringes on State Sovereignity
4) Denies access to certain procedures to some patients based on beaurcratic government decisions
5) Don't trust the same government that broke Social Securty, Medicare, Medicaid, to suddenly be able to sucessfully run and manage this.
What types of reform we could have
–A refundable tax credit to purchase healthcare in the market replacing dependence on corporate funded healthcare (this also increases international competitiveness) Allow this to be used to purchase healthcare from ANY State offering more choice and competitiveness. This also allows people to take their coverage with them if they move.
–Transparency in health care price and quality data readily available to the public at all times
–Give States flexibility to tailor federal programs like Medicaid and Medicare to their own populations since all States are not identical
–Tax free Medical savings accounts for all and grants for the low income brackets