Jan
31
2010

Barackrobatics 101: You Can Keep It

President Obama, State of the Union Address, January 27, 2010:

Our [health care] approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan.
President Obama, remarks to House Republican Retreat, January 29, 2010:
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. [emphasis added]
Faithful readers—there are maybe one or two out there—will know that Pun Salad has been a little obsessive on the "you can keep it" topic. Although the pundit quoting Obama at the second link deems it a "stunning admission", it's only "stunning" in that:
  1. President Obama has finally admitted what every other skeptical observer of Obamacare has known since the proposal firmed up; the "you can keep it" pledge was a lie.

  2. Although he's (apparently) trying to pretend that the "pledge" was only violated by "provisions that got snuck in" in last-minute wheeling and dealing, that's simply untrue. (The AP debunked Obama post-SOTU, but ABC News did the same thing this summer, as did CBS. Bob Herbert got around to noticing it in December. Both FactCheck and the Obama-tilted Politifact found the claim to be truth-impaired long ago. And this just scratches the surface.)

  3. But—still—admitting the lie less than 48 hours after uttering it (hopefully, one last time) on national TV… well, that takes chutzpah.

Notice, however, the (probably unintentional) phrasing. What Obama didn't say was:
… we said from the start that it was going to be important our legislation guaranteed that if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, …
Instead, longer-winded but more accurate, he said:
… 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, …
The only thing that was "consistent" was the deceptive talking point: what they were "saying to people".

And, indeed, through whatever propaganda mechanisms consistent talking points are promulgated, that was an entirely successful effort.

  • There's still a White House page devoted to propping up the "you can keep it" lie, featuring the insufferably smarmy Linda Douglas, "communications director" for the Administration. (You might want to check that link as soon as possible, before their wizards notice that President Obama has admitted it was, er, inoperative.)

  • My own state's (Democratic) senator, Jeanne Shaheen, claimed (falsely) that "if you have health coverage that you like you should be able to keep that" was a "requirement" for supporting the bill.

  • My own (Democratic) Congressperson, Carol Shea-Porter, has a page that still (falsely) claims that the House-passed legislation implemented the "you can keep it" pledge.

  • You can read the same lie in a USA Op-ed by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, ironically under the subheadline "Let the facts Be heard".

  • Senator Max Baucus, same lie.

  • It wasn't just politicians; both the AARP and Consumer Reports were only too happy to be sock puppets in spreading this bit of reassuring fiction.

  • And, trust me: again: we're just scratching the surface. "You can keep it" was repeated by multiple sources, over and over; you can Google it.

And I guess this is what's impressed me most about the "you can keep it" lie: how many people, almost certainly knowing that it was propagandistic bullshit, nevertheless repeated it to us with a straight face.

That's good to remember, because the same bunch will certainly use this same tactic again. Maybe not on health care, but definitely on some other pressing issue. After all, it almost worked this time.