Thread: Obama: H.C. Bill "Might Have Violated Pledge" On Keeping Some Doctors And Insurers

I never understood why the President kept saying "If you like your health plan and your doctor you can keep them".
Why would you be able to keep your health plan and your doctor?
You can't do that now, it's not up to you, it's up to your employer, and if you change employers, you change health plans and if your new employer has a different plan on a different network, you change your doctor.

Originally Posted by goober

I never understood why the President kept saying "If you like your health plan and your doctor you can keep them".
Why would you be able to keep your health plan and your doctor?
You can't do that now, it's not up to you, it's up to your employer, and if you change employers, you change health plans and if your new employer has a different plan on a different network, you change your doctor.

well no.1 he said that becasue he never understood the bill and was not by his own admission well versed in its particulars....( you can take away from thayt what you will, I find it almost criminal given what he was trying to do and convince us of) and what you just said is true to an extent ( you can always purchase your won is. right?) but;
thats not all he said goober, read the quote again....which speaks to the largest point of all.

Originally Posted by goober

I never understood why the President kept saying "If you like your health plan and your doctor you can keep them".
Why would you be able to keep your health plan and your doctor?
You can't do that now, it's not up to you, it's up to your employer, and if you change employers, you change health plans and if your new employer has a different plan on a different network, you change your doctor.

I've had the same Doctors through 4 different health insurers. Maybe the president was trying to appeal to people that liked the care they were getting?

Not that you aren't forced to change if you have no option but to change, people don't need yet another layer of bureaucracy changing their options for them.

Why would the president make such a claim? Because he was obfuscating the truth to get his bright shiny health care medal.

Originally Posted by Imperator

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "The last thing I will say, though -- let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we've presented -- and there's some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your -- if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you're not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge."

This type of thing truly angers me. Remember August? Concerned citizens were asking questions about what is in the health care bill, 1,000 pages of confusion that had not yet been analyzed by anyone. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc, etc went out there belittling the questioners, telling the world these people were trouble-makers brainwashed by the big insurance companies.

Think about what the people asked: "Will illegal aliens be covered? Will abortions be covered? Will there be a public option, or government run insurance? Will I be able to keep my current plan and doctor? Will my medicare plan be effected at all?"

Obama gave speech after speech telling people they will be able to keep their plan and doctor if you want to, and anyone who tells you different is lieing to you - and you should report these lies to the government website. NOW this arrogant SOB is admitting, "I think some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge." Yeah, how many other August pledges are violated in this 2,000 page disaster?

If Obama is looking for some advice - if he is wondering why the greater number of speeches he gives explaining his policies the less popular they become - I can answer that question quite easily. He needs to connect with the American people, not talk down to them.

Originally Posted by SupPackFan

This type of thing truly angers me. Remember August? Concerned citizens were asking questions about what is in the health care bill, 1,000 pages of confusion that had not yet been analyzed by anyone. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc, etc went out there belittling the questioners, telling the world these people were trouble-makers brainwashed by the big insurance companies.

Think about what the people asked: "Will illegal aliens be covered? Will abortions be covered? Will there be a public option, or government run insurance? Will I be able to keep my current plan and doctor? Will my medicare plan be effected at all?"

Obama gave speech after speech telling people they will be able to keep their plan and doctor if you want to, and anyone who tells you different is lieing to you - and you should report these lies to the government website. NOW this arrogant SOB is admitting, "I think some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge." Yeah, how many other August pledges are violated in this 2,000 page disaster?

If Obama is looking for some advice - if he is wondering why the greater number of speeches he gives explaining his policies the less popular they become - I can answer that question quite easily. He needs to connect with the American people, not talk down to them.

well said and frankly I think he did this to cover a flank....you will hear down the road somewhere;

" I was up front with the American people, I told them we had added provisions that may not allow them to keep their doctor and would install a ‘watchdog’ agency between them " etc. etc..this is how its done.

Easy for Obama to say now.

I think this is kind of an analyzing the loss type of thing.... and maybe a bit of excuse making. It sounds like he's saying things snuck into the bill,etc,etc.

Really, he doesn't go into detail about what he's referring to.....and as Goober mentioned, that kind of guarantee was bogus from the start, so nothing that the bill would have done or not done would allowed anyone to honestly make that claim as an absolute.

It is good for him to be pointing out flaws....he probably should have been more upfront all along instead of blowing nothing but sunshine. He might have been more effective as an arbiter...criticizing both Dems and Repubs on different points..... rather than being all but a blindly partisan supporter himself.

Originally Posted by SupPackFan

This type of thing truly angers me. Remember August? Concerned citizens were asking questions about what is in the health care bill, 1,000 pages of confusion that had not yet been analyzed by anyone. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc, etc went out there belittling the questioners, telling the world these people were trouble-makers brainwashed by the big insurance companies.

Think about what the people asked: "Will illegal aliens be covered? Will abortions be covered? Will there be a public option, or government run insurance? Will I be able to keep my current plan and doctor? Will my medicare plan be effected at all?"

Obama gave speech after speech telling people they will be able to keep their plan and doctor if you want to, and anyone who tells you different is lieing to you - and you should report these lies to the government website. NOW this arrogant SOB is admitting, "I think some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge." Yeah, how many other August pledges are violated in this 2,000 page disaster?

If Obama is looking for some advice - if he is wondering why the greater number of speeches he gives explaining his policies the less popular they become - I can answer that question quite easily. He needs to connect with the American people, not talk down to them.

Agreed: that condescension is a serious issue.

I think that was a significant and under-rated problem for Obama and also for Pelosi and Reid and the others. They assumed that all public opposition was some sort of plan by the GOP and that as you say, that those who spoke out were trouble-makers or brainwashed. I don't know if they really believed that - but that was their public response.

It was a great mistake. The Dems lost a great deal of credibility and respect that will be very dificult to reclaim.