berchman Loc: South Central PA

Truth about the public option momentarily emerges, quickly scampers back into hiding
Tom Daschle confirms, then denies, what has long been clear: Obama secretly negotiated it away early on

Glenn Greenwald Follow
(updated below)
As I’ve noted before, the column of mine which produced the greatest level of hate mail and anger in the last year — both in terms of intensity and quantity — was this one from August, 2009, when I compiled the evidence strongly suggesting that the White House, despite Obama’s multiple statements to the contrary, had secretly bargained away the public option with corporate interests early in the negotiation process and therefore did not intend to push for its inclusion in the final bill. That produced so much anger because it contradicted the central Democratic orthodoxy at the time that Obama — as he claimed in public — was trying as hard as he could to have a public option in the health care bill, but . . . gosh darn it, he was unfortunately stymied by his inability to get 60 votes for it, despite his best efforts (the fact that the health care bill ultimately passed via reconciliation, whereby the public option would have needed only 50 votes, was a separate issue).

Illustrative of the backlash was this post from The New Republic‘s Jonathan Chait:

I don’t agree with Greenwald’s positions on foreign policy and civil liberties, but he does have a valid beef with Obama in these areas. But when he insists that Obama secretly opposed the public option and has never wanted more stimulus, in the face of overwhelming evidence that the administration pushed the Senate as far left as it would go on those bills, he is revealing himself as a fanatic.

At the time Chait wrote that, there was already ample evidence that the White House had, in fact, secretly negotiated away the public option early on in the process, including confirmation from a New York Times reporter of the existence of such a deal, as well the fact that Russ Feingold said as clearly as he could that the reason there was no public option in the final bill was because the White House never pushed for it, because the final bill — without the public option — was the “legislation that the president wanted in the first place.”

But now, definitive evidence has emerged that this is exactly what happened: a new book by Tom Daschle. As Igor Volsky of ThinkProgress expertly documents — both by citing to Daschle’s book and by interviewing him — the White House had negotiated away the public option very early in the process (July, 2009), even though Obama and the administration spent months after that assuring their supporters that they were doing everything they could do have a public option in the bill:

In his book, Daschle reveals that after the Senate Finance Committee and the White House convinced hospitals to to accept $155 billion in payment reductions over ten years on July 8, the hospitals and Democrats operated under two “working assumptions.” “One was that the Senate would aim for health coverage of at least 94 percent of Americans,” Daschle writes. “The other was that it would contain no public health plan,” which would have reimbursed hospitals at a lower rate than private insurers.

I asked Daschle if the White House had taken the option off the table in July 2009 and if all future efforts to resuscitate the provision were destined to fail:

DASCHLE: I don’t think it was taken off the table completely. It was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others. I mean I think that part of the whole effort was based on a premise. That premise was, you had to have the stakeholders in the room and at the table. Lessons learned in past efforts is that without the stakeholders’ active support rather than active opposition, it’s almost impossible to get this job done. They wanted to keep those stakeholders in the room and this was the price some thought they had to pay. Now, it’s debatable about whether all of these assertions and promises are accurate, but that was the calculation. I think there is probably a good deal of truth to it. You look at past efforts and the doctors and the hospitals, and the insurance companies all opposed health care reform. This time, in various degrees of enthusiasm, they supported it. And if I had to point out some of the key differences between then and now, it would be the most important examples of the difference.

[VOLSKY]: Despite being “taken off the table” as a result of the “understanding,” the White House continued to publicly deny claims that it was backing away from the provision even as it tried to focus on other aspects of the bill. “Nothing has changed,” said Linda Douglass, then communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform in August of 2009 and many times thereafter. “The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”

What Daschle said here — in his interview with Volsky and, apparently, in his new book — is crystal clear, and is consistent with what has long been clear: despite its stream of public statements to the contrary, the Obama White House made no efforts to have a public option in the bill because their secret, early agreement with “stakeholders” was that no public option (and thus no real mechanism of competition with private industry) would be created.

One can reasonably argue that entering into secret, backroom deals to please industry interests was a “pragmatic” thing to do, notwithstanding how often Obama railed against exactly such transactions during his campaign (remember the I’ll-put-all-health-care-negotiations-on-C-SPAN pledge?). One can also argue that the public option would never have gotten 60 votes even if Obama and the White House had pushed for it. But one cannot argue that the White House did push for it, or even that they wanted it, since it was part of their deal with industry and its lobbyists from the start that it would not be in the final bill.

Quite amusingly and predictably, this ThinkProgress post was up for a very short period of time when Daschle suddenly emailed them a “clarification,” which said this (see the Update):

“In describing some of the challenges to passage of the public option in the health reform bill, I did not mean to suggest in any way that the President was not committed to it. The President fought for the public option just as he did for affordable health care for all Americans. The public option was dropped only when it was no longer viable in Congress, not as a result of any deal cut by the White House. While I was disappointed that the public option was not included in the final legislation, the Affordable Care Act remains a tremendous achievement for the President and the nation.”

But that directly contradicts what Daschle told Volsky (the Public Option ”was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others“), as well as what, apparently, is in his own book. As soon as the ThinkProgress item was up, a controversy begun to erupt, for obvious reasons. We’ll never know what prompted Daschle to issue this “clarification” — Daschle is, let’s recall, exactly what Matt Taibbi so memorably described him as being — but it’s painfully clear that the actual truth about what happened with the public option finally emerged quite clearly, albeit for a few short moments. Is Daschle going to retract his not-yet-released book, too?

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Do you mean that Obama actually lied. I find this hard to comprehend. I simply can not believe that Obama really lied. This must be republican propaganda. This must come from obama haters, and tea party rascist. How dare they even imply that obama be less than truthful. I can't think of a single incident where it has been proved that obama lied.

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

Period!!! :D :roll:

donrent Loc: Punta Gorda , Fl

" I can't think of a single incident where it has been proved that obama lied.
===========================================================
Well then... Lets try and look at it this way....

"Can you name any incidents where he told the truth " ???

ArtzDarkroom Loc: Near Disneyland-Orange County, California

Well I guess this would be called a group hate society… lol. Okay boys, you good ol' boys have fun. bye, I'm going to keep looking at the pretty pictures. Have fun.

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

Hahahaha....... :thumbup: :lol:

travelwp Loc: New Jersey

Haha, good one !

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

What exactly is a "lie"?

Judging by common usage today, if you say I lied it has the same meaning as if you said "I don't think I agree with what you said".

As I learned the term in my youth the word "lie" had a different meaning. Back then, if you said "you lied", then those were fighting words that mean essentially "you told me something that you honestly believe to be false". Of course that is always a hard charge to justify because you don't really know my mind or that of anyone besides yourself. And even you may be of two minds - it's not so uncommon.

Moreover words are not always so clear. I think each of us have had the experience of having our words interpreted in a way we didn't intend, sometimes the misinterpretation even seems deliberate. But other times we may recognize later how our words might have been easily misinterpreted.

Does this constitute a lie? Not as I use the word, but I do recognize that others (oddly it seems conservatives) use the term, "lie", much more liberally than I do.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

How about "If you like your insurance plan you can keep it! Period!" CSpan has video of the president being directly confronted on this issue by then House minority leader Cantor back in 2010. The president knew all along that it was a lie.

Or... It was a video tape, only a fool would buy the president's so called fog of war story, our military knew immediately what was happening and so did the embassy officials in Tripoli, all was reported directly to the president.

Or... How about Al Qaeda is decimated, another political lie... it was all BS, just have a look around.

Or.... How about our borders are secure, DHS has already transported 290,000 illegals this year to various locations around the country, and those are just the ones that came into their custody, how many more 100's of thousands simply moved into the interior of the country not having been detected?

Here are some more for you, hardly a case of disagreeing with our president but actually a case of outright lies by our president.

- “Today I’m pledging to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office.” Instead, the national debt increased $5 trillion on his watch.

- “As soon as we’re out of this recession, we’ve got to get serious about starting to live within our means.” Huh?

- “We agree on reforms that will reduce the costs of health care. Families will save on their premiums.”

- “We’ve got shovel-ready projects all across the country.” Later, Obama admitted his own lie, saying, “There’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”

- “We reject the use of national security … to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime.”

- We “will ensure that federal contracts over $25,000 are competitively bid.”

- We “will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year.”

- “We are going to work with you to lower your [health care] premiums by $2,500,” and we’ll “do it by the end of my first term as president.”

- “I don’t take a dime of their [lobbyists’] money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.” In fact, Obama granted waivers at will, and more than a dozen lobbyists got jobs in the Obama administration.

- “I pledge to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” But Obama has ignored the constitutional amendment granting powers not enumerated in the Constitution to the states.

- “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

- “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.” The truth is that the White House proposed an “automatic sequester” on July 12, 2011.

- “I didn’t set a red line [in Syria].” And yet, at a prior news conference, using unscripted language in a statement, he said, “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around.”

- “Eighty percent of Americans support including higher taxes as part of the [debt ceiling] deal.” However, that same week, a poll by Rasmussen showed only 34 percent supported a tax hike as part of the deal.

- In 2006: “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” But as president, Obama has led the charge each year to increase America’s debt.

- And, let’s not forget PolitiFact’s 2013 Lie Of The Year: “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what. … You can keep your family doctor.”

travelwp Loc: New Jersey

Yes, Obama knew it was not true, but it was election time. This is an undisputed LIE !

travelwp Loc: New Jersey

I'd like to read the answer to that one too !

Smokey Here

:lol: I can tell your joking because Obama has done [b]nothing[b] BUT LIE since the cameras been on him

rocketride Loc: Upstate NY

When I say that Obama has never told the truth except possibly by accident, and that it is possible to tell that he is doing so again by the motion of his lips, you may rest assured that I am accusing him of a pattern of deliberate falsehood.

pecohen Loc: Central Maine

I think I recall Obama's statement from around the time that he made it. I'm not sure, possibly I heard it again and again later, but I do think I heard it at the time. In any event, my recollection is that when first I heard it my immediate reaction was that such a sweeping statement couldn't possibly be true, that with or without the passage of Obamacare people lose their health plans because they lose their jobs, because the insurance company cancels their policy (perhaps because they got seriously sick) or any number of other reasons. Surely he did not mean what he said if taken strictly - people do talk imprecisely like that all the time after all, much the way they throw the word "lie" around.

No, he probably meant that Obamacare would not force people off their current insurance, everything else being equal. Maybe he thought that was true and had not considered that the ACA would actually force the termination of sub-standard health care plans; then again, perhaps he had thought of that but realized that people with those plans don't really like them. Who knows what was in his mind?

Maybe he was lying and maybe he was saying what he thought to be true or at least close to the truth. Saying he was lying - well those are fighting words; but maybe that is your real point.

berchman Loc: South Central PA

As the original poster, I supplied documented evidence of the president lying about his supposed pushing of the public option while knowing that he had negotiated away. These are not "fighting words"; they are an indication that we need a change in financing elections and we need a candidate like Bernie Silvers.