Obama’s Pants are on Fire

Obama’s health care speech, in which he denounces misinformation and scare tactics, he offered quite a bit of misinformation and scare tactics (e.g “more will die as a result”).  The Cato Institute debunked plenty of the misinformation on their live blog, and we’ve talked about Obama’s continued “misinformation” on health care.  But what draws my ire today is Obama’s claims that his critics have no solutions and support the status quo. 

In Labor Day remarks to the AFL CIO, Obama said:

“You’ve heard all the lies,” Obama said. “I’ve got a question for all those folks: What are you going to do? What’s your answer? What’s your solution?

“And you know what? They don’t have one. Their answer is to do nothing…”

in his speech last night, Obama toned it down, but the implication was the same:

I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now. Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing.

Fact is, while we remain critical of health care proposals by Obama and Democrats in Congress, we have offered suggestions for patient-driven health care reforms, in fact, we laid out our agenda long before Obama was in office.  At the sake of repeating myself, we do not support the “status quo” and have articulated the divergent paths in health care reform.

Perhaps, you say, Obama has never heard of the Commonwealth Foundation or our proposals.  Perhaps Obama is unfamiliar with the numerous organizations in the Health Care Freedom Coalition or our Affordable Health Care Agenda.  Perhaps Obama is not aware of health care alternatives put forward by national organizations like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and many others.

I might even believe that Obama has not been briefed on patient driven health care solutions adopted in states like Florida, Missouri, Georgia, or legislative proposals in Pennsylvania.

But I cannot believe Obama is oblivious of proposals in Congress, such as those of Sen. Jim Demint or Rep. Paul Ryan that would give consumers greater control in health care. 

I don’t want to overtly call someone a liar – but when you say your critics “aren’t offering solutions” when they are offering solutions, you are lying.