PROMISES, PROMISES: Private deals on health care

Well, it turns out that Obama likes his backroom, underhanded deals just like the rest of his cronies. Surprised? I think not.

Once again he continues to break promises that he made on his campaign trail.

In cutting deals with hospitals and drugmakers, President Barack Obama is giving a private inside track to special interests that's at odds with his promise to make policy in the open.

Obama promised Americans he would hold special interests at arm's length _ that it would no longer be business as usual in Washington. He pledged to open government and let the public and press hold his administration accountable.

Remember this little promise that is now nothing but a distant memory.

And just over two months before the 2008 election, Obama promised before an audience in Chester, Va., to hash out a health care overhaul in public. "We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies," he said then.

Instead, the administration's multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies have been made in private, and the results were announced after the fact. Both industries promised Obama cost savings in return for an expanded base of insured patients; beyond that, the public is in the dark about details.

New boss same as the first. No change.

In some ways, it resembles what his party criticized President George W. Bush for doing with oil and gas companies as Vice President Dick Cheney wrote a national energy plan in the early days of the Bush administration. As the Bush White House did, the Obama White House is refusing to release visitor logs that would let people see everyone going in and out during the thick of discussions over major national policies.

The lesson of the day is eloquently presented by the author of this article.

Presidents, regardless of party, prefer to keep their dealmaking private, obscuring what's being said, what's being taken and given, and by whom. It's messier and less practical to open the door to a lot of public input, particularly on a national scale; it's much easier to use polls to gauge what the public thinks. That means the interests whose ideas make it into national policy are usually those with the money and clout to press their case in Washington, and who have the power to block any idea they haven't helped to shape.

townhall.com...

Nicely said. Wake up people. The light is right in front of you. You just have to open your eyes to see it.

The President is just the pretty face we associate with government.

It's the POLITICAL PARTY that is corrupt beyond repair. When I say political party I mean the two headed political party - the one where they pretend like there's some significant difference between Republicans and Democrats, and then they do EXACTLY the same crap as would have been done if the other party were in the administration.... it's a cruel joke. They change parties at their whim to ensure the continuation of their political careers.

Pathetic.

Bush was an energy cartel shill, Obama is an Insurance cartel shill. And they all work for the same supranational banking cartel that is ruining the planet for us all.

That short excerpt from Town Hall was just a rant.

I was recently invited to give my input into the Obama health care plan to representatives of the Obama administration on their current "listening tour."

If they're asking average Americans like me, they're listening.

Of course he's got to consider the input of health insurance companies and other healthcare industries.

Government in America is always about compromise. Presidents don't rule by fiat.