And now that millions of Americans have been receiving cancellation notices from their health insurers, the media has finally awakened to the fact that he was lying all along.
So, when Obama sat down for an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd Thursday, there wasn't much that he could say that could improve his situation. This didn't stop Obama from spinning webs....
Prompted to offer an apology by Todd, Obama eventually said of those with cancelled insurance, “I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.”
That passively-phrased statement isn’t likely to reassure those who are worried about losing their coverage....
Looking back, Obama said, “if we had to do it all over again, that there would have been a whole lot more questions that were asked in terms of how this thing is working.”
Seriously? This is Obama’s leading priority — the goal of liberal policy reformers for decades — and he just now figured out that he should have been more on top of the implementation process?
Perhaps even more mind-blowing for a president whose driving ambition was to prove to Americans that big government can be effective, Obama blasted the federal procurement for technology projects when asked why the Obamacare website didn’t function as well as his campaign website.
“When it comes to my campaign, I’m not constrained by a bunch of federal procurement rules,” Obama said.
He later said of the federal process, “When we buy IT services generally, it is so bureaucratic and so cumbersome that a whole bunch of it doesn’t work or it ends up being way over cost.”
◼ REPORT: 52 million Americans have lost or will lose health insurance... - Kevin G. Hall and Anita Kumar/McClatchy Washington Bureau
Obama insisted anew Thursday that the problem is limited to people who buy their own insurance. “We’re talking about 5 percent of the population who are in what’s called the individual market. They’re out there buying health insurance on their own,” he told NBC.
But a closer examination finds that the number of people who have plans changing, or have already changed, could be between 34 million to 52 million. That’s because many employer-provided insurance plans also could change, not just individually purchased insurance plans
Administration officials decline to say how many employer-sponsored plans could change. But those numbers could be between 23 million to 41 million, based on a McClatchy analysis of estimates offered by the Department of Health and Human Services in June 2010.
◼ Krauthammer On Obama's Apology: "The President Now Is Toxic" - Real Clear Politics
◼ Obama is sorry Americans aren´t smart enough to grasp what he really meant - IBD
◼ Fact-Checking The President´s Kind-Of Sort-Of ´Apology´ ForObamacare-Driven Insurance Cancellations - Avik Roy/Forbes
◼ Obama offers fauxpology for 'situation' - Thomas Lifson/American Thinker
...One note on media coverage of the fauxpology: most outlets, including NBC News itself in its online transcript, have cleaned up the president's words, omitting his "errs," and "you knows." But not the Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin and several other outlets. For tea leaf readers, this is evidence that some of the establishment media have gotten fed up with the lies and are no longer as actively covering for Obama. A small point, but something to keep in mind, because the problems with Obamacare are not only not solved, they have only just begun.
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An independent journalist has released – into the public domain – a list of
“Dan from Squirrel Hill” ◼ has a blog at WordPress where he regularly writes on conservative issues. His list is complete, authoritative and well-sourced.
