George Stephanopoulos interviews Obama Sept, 2009...
OBAMA: George, the fact this you've looked up Merriam's dictionary, that -- uh, the definition of tax increase indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no!
OBAMA: I mean, what --
STEPHANOPOULOS: I --
OBAMA: If what you're saying --
STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. Your critics say it is a tax increase.
OBAMA: My critics say everything's a tax increase! My critics say that I'm taking over, uhh, every sector of the economy. You know that. Uh, eh, eh, eh, eh... Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but --
STEPHANOPOULOS: You reject that it's a tax increase?
OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.
Now, here's what's interesting about this. He "rejects" the fact that this individual mandate, the fact that we have to go buy health insurance, is a tax. So there's a lawsuit out there. Attorneys general from various states, a bunch who work in a law school saying, "Hey, the federal government cannot mandate the American people buy anything. It's the Commerce Clause. You can't do it." So what has the Obama administration now said? In defending that lawsuit, the Obama administration says that the individual mandate is a tax, that they have the authority to levy and raise taxes. So Obama lied through his teeth. Everything about health care that he said was an out-and-out lie! Small firms are now no longer able to provide health insurance.
Small insurance companies no longer able to provide it, and they're gonna send people in Massachusetts, the state, to do it, and that's coming in the federal version of health care as well. The private sector insurance companies are hanging by a thread. They're not going to be around long. On purpose. But Obama now has to go out and say, in order defend this lawsuit against the individual mandate, "No, it's not a mandate. We're not mandating everybody buy health insurance. It's a tax, and we have the authority to levy and raise taxes." All the while denying as he just did to Stephanopoulos (that's back in 2009) that it was a tax. So now back to Mr. Codevilla: the 2010 medical law is a template for the ruling class's economic modus operandi. "The 2010 medical law is a template for the ruling class's economic modus operandi: the government taxes citizens to pay for medical care and requires citizens to purchase health insurance.
"The money thus taken and directed is money that the citizens themselves might have used to pay for medical care. In exchange for the money, the government promises to provide care through its 'system.' But then all the boards, commissions, guidelines, procedures, and 'best practices' that constitute 'the system' become the arbiters of what any citizen ends up getting. The citizen might end up ... dependent on all the boards and commissions that his money also pays for and that raise the cost of care. Similarly, in 2008 the House Ways and Means Committee began considering a plan to force citizens who own Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to transfer those funds into government-run 'guaranteed retirement accounts.'
"If the government may force citizens to buy health insurance, by what logic can it not force them to trade private ownership and control of retirement money for a guarantee as sound as the government itself? Is it not clear that the government knows more about managing retirement income than individuals?" Yeah, sure it is...
And, the House voted to repal ObamaCare for the reasoning that they ran on doing so. If they won their election under the promise of moving to repeal Obamacare (which they did), then they are making good on their campaign promise, correct? And, since the house controls the purse strings of the federal government, they CAN defund Obamacare....effectively repealing it!!! No money....no Obamacare.
Notwithstanding, the states are mobilizing a lawsuit, challenging Obabcare to MAKE them implement it. A Federal judge already ruled it unconstitutional, by virtue of the commerce clause.
Now, this health care slide show that advises the Democrats on what to say and what not to say, is a blatant acknowledgement that Obamacare was pushed through Congress on the basis of a lie. Lets go back to his immaculation speech when Imam Obama was immaculated.
He said, "Our health care is too costly," and then he expanded on that in his speech on health care to Congress in September of 2009. That was the speech where Congressman Joe Wilson shouted out, "You lie!" Remember that? In that speech, Imam Obama said, "Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. These are the facts. Nobody disputes them. The plan I'm announcing tonight would meet three basic goals. It will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government." That's what Imam Obama said. "Nobody disputes " it. That was then. Now, as with all of his promises, there's an expiration date.
The expiration date on this one has arrived. That's the speech that Joe Wilson shouted "You lie," when Obama's out there talking about how his health care plan is gonna permanently reduce the deficit, lower health care costs, and now the Democrats say, "Don't say it." Because, see, Obamacare would have had a sunset provision locked in if it did not claim to reduce the deficit. That's some newfangled law that they've had in the budget requirements for a while. The tax cuts have to sunset because the CBO said they wouldn't reduce the deficit. If it doesn't reduce the deficit, then it's gotta be ended at some point. So they had to say that health care was gonna reduce the deficit in order to make it permanent. We were lied to, scammed. This is fraud and deceit, and it's admission now by the Democrats is profound.
To get Obamacare through the reconciliation process without a sunset provision, the CBO claimed it would reduce the deficit by $118 billion. Remember they were massaging and manipulating this to say it was never going to cost more than a trillion because that's what the Iraq war had cost and the regime was out there saying, "Oh, health care is going to cost less than the Iraq war." It was all lies, and Joe Wilson shouted that, and look what happened to him. So now we have... It's unconscionable. This entire regime has been a lie. They continue to lie...
New Democrat message: Improve health care, don't talk costs. Don't talk costs. Talk about all the benefits. It's not a big deal. It's now health care, actual health care is much better. "Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and the deficit and instead stressing a promise to 'improve it.'" and again, the only reason this was in there is to make it permanent. If a program expands the deficit, by law, it has to have a sunset. It has to end. And they want Obamacare to be perpetual. So they had to lie that it will reduce the deficit $118 billion. Big whoop. All a lie. Everything they have said about it is a lie.
The Aug. 2 ballot issue asked voters to decide whether to amend state statutes to 'deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance.' ... 'This will set up a constitutional showdown,' said state Rep. Tim Jones, R-Eureka. ... Democrats referred to the bill as an 'election-year stunt,'" but the states can't afford this and they're going to try to go at this in any number of ways. The constitutional route is just one of them. Nancy Pelosi. "'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,' Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, told us just weeks before Congress passed President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Well, the nation’s post-passage Obamacare education continues when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed that the federal government will have to spend an additional $115 billion implementing the law, bringing the total estimated cost to over $1 trillion."
Oooops....somebody lieeed!