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Obama Health Care Promise – Expired

June 19, 2009 at 10:09 pm by Jim Vicevich  
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Time to throw out the milk. Another Obama promise with an expired expiration date. This one is the now famous … you can keep your health insurance promise, Remember?

Yes its been made many, many times but I thought I would post the one 48 hours old. Well according to the AP … EXPIRED. Via Michelle Malkin who has a list of other Obama promises that have expired.

White House officials suggest the president’s rhetoric shouldn’t be taken literally: What Obama really means is that government isn’t about to barge in and force people to change insurance.

Then this from the same article:

MIT’s Jonathan Gruber, a leading health economist, said Obama’s promise shouldn’t be taken as a sign that Americans will be able to keep indefinitely the same coverage they have now.

“With or without reform, that won’t be true,” said Gruber. “His point is that the government is not going to force you to give up what you have, but that’s not to say other circumstances won’t make that happen.” He predicts only a small share of employers will drop coverage, and they will use the money they would have spent on premiums to give raises to their workers.

Raises? Well, he works in an ivory tower. No teach … employers will not be giving us raises because they are saving on health care. They’ll keep the dough and we’ll get your crummy health care. Raises. Oh brother.

BTW … Heritage was on this yesterday.

Less than 24 hours after Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner questioned the veracityof President Obama’s persistent claim that, under his health care proposals, “if you like your insurance package you can keep it”, the White House has begun to walk the President’s claim back. Turns out he didn’t really mean it.

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  1. Obama on Health Care: Hey, you can’t take me literally | Radio Vice Online says:
    June 24, 2009 at 6:25 am

    [...] the weekend I posted on how the White House advised that the President should not be taken literally when he said, [...]



Comments

Responses to “Obama Health Care Promise – Expired”
  1. Dimsdale says:
    June 20, 2009 at 7:31 am

    “White House officials suggest the president’s rhetoric shouldn’t be taken literally”

    So the “great orator” Obama, this “giant” of politics, can’t even be taken literally? Then what is the point of his speeches, other than to soothe the great unwashes masses (read it: Democrats)?

    Obama is living proof that everytime a lawyer/politician’s lips move, he is lying.

    Obama lied, the economy died.

  2. sammy22 says:
    June 20, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    Can somebody explain to a dummy like me why employers would pay for health care (my wife’s pays 70% of the premium) if there was nothing in it for them? Maybe if all employers dropped paying we may all have to go to the ERs. We can all be without coverage!

    • Steve McGough says:
      June 21, 2009 at 7:07 pm

      You’re not a dummy. Your compensation package not only includes salary, but also may – or may not – include other benefits including medical, dental, parking, paid time off, discounted cell phone plans and possibly the ability to buy company stock and discounted rates. The company provides these benefits to match or beat market rates. If you have a choice of jobs, you consider the benefits from each before you choose.

      So, there is something in it to provide benefits, they get higher quality talent to come to work for them. All employers won’t just drop benefits, but the government artificiality getting involved can change the landscape quite a bit.

    • Wyndeward says:
      June 21, 2009 at 9:34 pm

      One of the things you have to realize, Sammy, is how health insurance, in something in its current recognizable incarnation, became common-place. IIRC, it arose as a “common” perk during the forties, following Roosevelt’s wage freeze — unable to compete for workers on the basis of wages, employers threw in perks, such as health insurance, as a sweetener to attract workers.

      Employers will continue to offer health care so long as A) it is a desirable perk that will attract and retain good workers and B) it is worthwhile to the company, both in dollars and social capital.

  3. donh says:
    June 20, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Raises? Who got raises from all the outsourcing and off shoring of labor? This is about reducing compensation to American workers, and getting people to work like slaves for lower quality benefits. The only people who will get raises are the Czars .

    • Steve McGough says:
      June 21, 2009 at 6:55 pm

      I understand your feelings, but outsourcing happens – and will continue to happen – whether you’re comparing city to city, state to state or country to country. Auto jobs moved from Michigan to Tennessee, yet that is not considered super bad like outsourcing tech support to India.

      Some companies who outsourced failed when it came to one of the critical success factors – service – and paid for that dearly. If government continues to be hostile to business, they will make moves to reduce costs to stay competitive with the competition that may move to reduce costs faster.

    • Wyndeward says:
      June 21, 2009 at 9:39 pm

      Out-sourcing was an inevitability, donH. Just as water settles to the lowest accessible level, capital migrates to the most attractive environment. Given the legislative, environmental and other regulatory differences, certain low / no-skill jobs were bound to migrate, particularly in light of certain excesses here in the states.

      For instance, IIRC, a metal operation in Ohio left the state after they were informed that the water the released into the local gray-water system, under new regulations, had to be *cleaner* that the water they drew from the drinking supply.

      Capital votes with its feet. You make the climate too unfriendly and they take the hint.

  4. Wyndeward says:
    June 21, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Of course, I just have to ask — if they intended for a minute to maintain parallel systems, where you could retain your private insurance, why would they they *TAX* you one them? I mean, if they aren’t interested in running private insurance out of the marketplace, why would they begin the process of damaging the economic viability of private health insurance by placing levies upon it?

  5. donh says:
    June 23, 2009 at 7:17 am

    The same corrupt corporate interests that lobbied for Nafta, “free trade”, illegal immigration , and bailout policies now want to offload the expense of compensating american workers with quality healthcare. Pushing us into government plans is the next chapter in this ongoing effort to make the american worker equally poor to the third world on this misguided belief economic equlibrium makes inevitable the fall of the american worker. Those Czars of government and business who hasten this decline by selling us out to the forces of slavery are the only ones getting raises.