Here’s Steny Hoyer on Obama’s oft-repeated promise that if you like your health insurance plan you could keep it:
“We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage,” Hoyer said in response to a question from National Review.Asked by another reporter how repeated statements by Obama to the contrary weren’t “misleading,” Hoyer said “I don’t think the message was wrong. I think the message was accurate. It was not precise enough…[it] should have been caveated with – ‘assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do.’”
If there were a prize for creativity in making excuses for such a central lie, the current crop of explanations for Obama’s promise should win, hands down.
To refresh your memory:
Why didn’t Obama and other Democrats make a more accurate and complete statement in the first place? Because it would have contradicted the lying message they wanted to broadcast, which is that if you liked your policy you could keep it. Adding the caveat Hoyer has belatedly suggested would have essentially changed the message into something like this: “Obamacare’s requirements may cause changes in your health insurance plan if it’s not in compliance with the law.” And that was most assuredly not what Obama or the other Democrats wanted to tell the American people.
If Hoyer or any of those defending the lies were actually interested in truth, it might make sense to draw their attention to the unequivocal nature of Obama’s statement, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan, PERIOD.” That “period” in there actually means that the statement is complete and precise as is; no qualifications. Not that the “period” was necessary to make the statement definitive, but Obama added it to make it even more so, the better to emphasize the “no ifs, ands, or buts” nature of his promise.
But Hoyer et al are most assuredly not interested in truth. They are interested in spin and butt-covering for one of the most egregious and definitely one of the most important lies ever told the American people by a president.
The real problem, though, is not their spin, which would and should be laughable to any thinking person. It’s that some people accept and/or parrot it, and some of those people are members of the still-influential MSM. And if the majority of Americans either nod in accord or shrug in disinterest, than we as a people have become profoundly stupid and/or profoundly corrupted.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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