The Question:
What do you think about President Obama’s promises since 2009 that you could keep your existing insurance?
2% - Whatever he said was for the greater good.
6% - Whatever he said was no worse than any other politician.
27%- Whether intentional or not, he misled the American people.
65% - The president lied to the American people.
My Comments:
Every president makes campaign promises. Some they keep and some they don’t. Most of the time when they don’t keep a promise it doesn’t amount to much. It’s politics, after all, right?
But sometimes a promise is so prominent that, when broken, it becomes quite momentous. President George H.W. Bush ran afoul of this truth when he broke his promise of “No new taxes–read my lips–no new taxes.” When he did, in fact, increase taxes during his first term, this breach of trust with voting Americans was definitely one of the reasons his reelection bid was lost to the unlikely candidacy of Bill Clinton.
Now fast-forward to the 21st century. “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it–period!” “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor-guaranteed!” These are the promises President Barack Obama made to Americans on dozens of occasions during the debate about the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, and in defense of the law after passage when he was running for reelection. Now, barely more than a month after Obamacare went live, it’s becoming obvious that there are problems with those promises.
Most people agree that Bush 41 was faced with issues that caused him to change his mind about taxes a few years later. The price he paid was for breaking his promise, but no one ever accused him of lying. But at this moment President Obama is in a whirlwind of public opinion about what he knew and what his motivations were when he made his promises. We asked our audience in a recent online poll what they thought with this question: “What do you think about President Obama’s promises since 2009 that you could keep your existing insurance?” Here’s what we learned.
Just 2% of our sample said, “Whatever he said was for the greater good,” with another 6% choosing, “Whatever he said was no worse than any other politician.” A little more than one-fourth allowed that, “Whether intentional or not, he misled the American people.” But almost two-thirds of our respondents believe, “The president lied to the American people.”
One thing is evident from this most recent presidential breech: Americans have very definite feelings about the cost and availability of their health care. And anyone who presumes to impose their will on this personal and intimate dynamic is putting their political prospects in harm’s way.
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