Obama yet to challenge insurers for punking – another lie

A week after insurers and the American Hospital Association told the world, and President Barack Obama, they had NOT promised The One 1.5 percent per year in health costs savings, Obama has yet to comment further or challenge them.

Paul Krugman kindly reminds us of this and other recent healthcare-related limitations of post-partisanship.

Back during the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama argued that the Clintons had failed in their 1993 attempt to reform health care because they had been insufficiently inclusive. He promised instead to gather all the stakeholders, including the insurance companies, around a “big table.” And that May 11 event was, of course, intended precisely to show this big-table strategy in action.

But what if interest groups showed up at the big table, then blocked reform? Back then, Mr. Obama assured voters that he would get tough: “If those insurance companies and drug companies start trying to run ads with Harry and Louise, I’ll run my own ads as president. I’ll get on television and say ‘Harry and Louise are lying.’ ”

We’ve yet to see one of those ads.

Meanwhile, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is whipping out an ad campaign attacking a single-payer option (which Obama already seems to have abandoned anyway).

So, The One is going to eventually feed us some gussied-up neoliberal bullshit called “healthcare reform.”

Followed by some big campaign contributions, no doubt.