Scarborough: Of course Obama "flagrantly lied" about ObamaCare

Last night, Joe Scarborough appeared on the Hugh Hewitt show to discuss the latest revelations about ObamaCare — the cancellation of millions of policies thanks to the deliberate machinations involving the “grandfathering” process.  The White House sent out its spinners and shanghaied Democratic apologists to try to convince people that Barack Obama’s five-year mantra of “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” somehow coexists in a truthful world with those millions of cancellations being received right now by stunned Americans.  Scarborough scoffed at the notion, agreeing with Hugh that Obama “flagrantly lied” and misled Americans on the consequences of his government takeover of the insurance industry:

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HH: Joe, how many Americans, do you think, will not have the health insurance they presently have come January 1 of 2014? How many millions are we talking about?

JS: I really, I’m trying to figure it out right now. Somebody thought maybe ten million, eleven million. This morning, we were talking about it, and you know, you had administration officials coming on saying it wasn’t a big deal. But it’s a huge deal. I mean, the President, especially, and I talked an awful lot this morning about, I asked Mike Barnicle this morning how many people actually sift through the words of a state of the Union address, and allows the president of the United States to say something that Lisa Myers found out last night several members of his administration knew about, and the President knew about. I mean, for the President to deliberately mislead millions and millions of Americans in a state of the Union address certainly seems to me to have as much impact or more impact on the day in and day out lives of millions and millions of Americans than the sixteen words George Bush was crucified for saying in the 2003 state of the Union address.

HH: Well said. I hadn’t thought about that.

JS: It’s terrible.

HH: This is Clarence Page, your MSNBC colleague, with me yesterday talking in response to the promises the President made.

HH: He knew he was lying?

CP: Probably. Probably. But that’s one of those political lies.

HH: Are you surprised that people like Clarence Page are admitting the President just out and out lied?

JS: What else could he do? You know, I asked everybody this morning what, you know, I asked a lot of White House reporters this morning what’s the White House’s spin? I asked Chuck Todd what’s the White House’s spin, and he said they don’t have one. It is such a deliberate, it was such a flagrant lie. When you’re telling people they can keep their insurance policies if they want to. Now I had a lot of people, a lot of conservatives last night Tweeting, interrupting my Red Sox game, Tweeting, saying well, why didn’t you guys report about this a couple of years ago? Well, I think we all knew this was the case that the President, that the President and the administration was misleading the American people. But what was new in Lisa Myers’ revelation was last night, was they had like three or four people that were actually working with the President who said the President knew at the time and let him know at the time that what he was saying was not the truth.

HH: Do you think he, Joe, Joe Scarborough, do you think he knew at the time?

JS: Of course.

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The next part doesn’t make it into the clip, but it’s a great point about the escalation of this debacle.  Right now, we’re discussing the impact of this lie on the individual market, where 17 million Americans buy their health insurance — a relatively small percentage of the electorate.  HHS estimated three years ago that as many as two-thirds of those would see their policies canceled under ObamaCare.  But that may be a drop in the bucket, as Scarborough pointed out in the end of the interview:

HH: Joe, 30 seconds, here’s the problem. And tell me if I’m right or wrong. Your colleagues, and not just at NBC, but across all of big media, are insulated from this. They’re not really threatened. They don’t really care.

JS: No, because, and you know, 86% of Americans who like health care, you know, the health care that they have through their employers, don’t care right now. But you know what? They’re going to care, because some of the biggest corporate leaders in America have told me over the past three years off the record that they’re going to wait a few years, and then they’re going to cancel all the policies, because it would be much cheaper for the, and much more cost efficient, and pretty soon, all Americans are going to care.

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Bingo. When that happens, expect a huge and transformative political backlash, one that may last a generation or more. That is, if ObamaCare remains in effect for that long, and right now that’s at least a small if.

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David Strom 3:20 PM | November 15, 2024
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