Now to Drudge and the White House. ‘The White House is turning to the Internet to hit back at a Web posting that claims to show President Barack Obama explaining how his health care reform plans eventually would eliminate private insurance. The 3-minute White House video features Linda Douglass, a former network television correspondent,’ at ABC, ‘and now White House Office of Health Reform communications director, sitting in front of a computer screen showing the Drudge Report website.’ We got four sound bites on this. Here’s the first.
DOUGLASS: Hi. I’m Linda Douglass. I’m the communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform and one of my jobs is to keep track of all the disinformation that’s out there about health insurance reform. And there are a lot of very deceiving headlines out there right now such as this one, take a look at this one. This one says, ‘Uncovered Video, Obama Explains How His Health Care Plan Will Eliminate Private Insurance.’ Well, nothing could be farther from the truth. They’re taking sentences and phrases out of context and cobbling them together to leave a very false impression.
RUSH: Nothing is being taken out of context. It’s Barack Obama in his own words as you’ll hear in just a second. But let’s take a look here at what’s happening. First place, Obama is using a former member of state-controlled media to try to sell his lies. Rahm Emanuel is out there bullying the networks to cover Obama’s purposeful lies about destroying private sector health insurance. Obama called Bob Iger and Les Moonves and Jeffrey Immelt, the CEOs of the corporations that own the three networks, to pressure them to carrying that Wednesday night press conference. They didn’t want to do it. You have Kathleen Sebelius deliberately lying to Americans in town hall meetings about Obamacare, and Sebelius has one of the most amazing op-eds today in the Washington Post. Second-to-last paragraph, Kathleen Sebelius who got tarred and feathered with Arlen Specter the other day: ‘President Obama and I are working closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and health-care experts to make sure we get the details of health reform right. But we can’t let the details distract us from the huge benefits that reform will bring. The urgency behind reform has nothing to do with the schedule of Congress and everything to do with the needs of the American people.’
She basically says forget the details, we want peace of mind. Forget the details. No wonder members of Congress aren’t reading it. Details don’t matter. But of course they do matter to the people this is going to affect. So after Rahm and after Kathleen Sebelius, you’ve got Robert Gibbs deliberately lying to the media about Obama’s intentions to raise taxes on all Americans because he’s going to. Obama’s lying about his attempt to jam socialized medicine down our throats. This isn’t hardball politics. This is the Bernie Madoff method of taking money under false pretenses. There is an open fraud being conducted on the American people by this administration. It is nothing but a campaign of pure fraud and deceit each and every day and it has been joined by the Democrat Party at large. They’re not telling one truth that matters as they try to sell this plan and now they send Linda Douglass out there to try to counteract. All Drudge did was post video of Obama saying what he said. Here’s more Linda Douglass.
DOUGLASS: There are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time and they take a phrase here and there, they simply cherry-pick and put it together and make it sound like he’s saying something that he didn’t really say. Now, for example, here’s a clip that they probably won’t show you.
OBAMA: Here’s a guarantee that I’ve made. If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance. If you’ve got a doctor that you like, you will be able to keep your doctor. Nobody is trying to change what works in a system. We are trying to change what doesn’t work in the system.
RUSH: That is nothing but pure deceit. I don’t know about you, folks, there are a lot of personality characteristics in other people that bug me just like fingernails on a chalkboard. Arrogance is one, cockiness when it’s not deserved and deceit. When I am deceived, especially in people that I’m open and up-front with, I just lose it. This is a campaign of pure fraud and deceit that is being orchestrated by this administration to take away as much freedom and liberty as possible and transfer it as power to themselves. And in the process, destroy the best of something in the United States and the world, and that is our health care system. Okay. So she plays a clip of Obama in recent times, saying you get to keep your insurance. No, you don’t get to keep your insurance. And I’ll demonstrate that in just a second. But let’s go back and let’s listen to Obama himself, first in 2007. It’s in March, and it’s a Service Employees International Union health care forum. Here’s Barack Obama as candidate.
OBAMA: My commitment is to make sure that we got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as president. I would hope that we set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out.
RUSH: Now, it’s not incidental and insignificant who he’s speaking to here. He’s speaking to the SEIU, one of the many unions that donated I think a total of $65 million. These are the people that community organize and agitate and go out and cause all kinds of problems to upset normalcy in community after community after community. These are his buds. These are the people he tells the truth to. These are the people he wants to know what’s really going to happen because they’re for it, and he says right here, I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. Now, you don’t have to take anything out of context, and you don’t have to make anything up. I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately, but we’re going to do it in 15 to 20 years, and when you take employer coverage out there’s no more private, it’s all single payer, it’s all government. Let’s go back to 2003, this clip does not help Linda Douglass’ case. This is the piece de resistance. June of 2003, AFL-CIO conference, not insignificant again who his audience is, his buds, union agitators and organizers to whom he wants to tell the truth. This is an audience he does not want to deceive. This is an audience he wants on his side forever. Here’s what he said.
OBAMA: I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan, that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately, because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.
RUSH: Now, somebody tell me how in the world anyone could take that out of context. That is a full 43 seconds, no edits, we didn’t take sentences out of order and assemble them in a way we wanted. A single payer health care plan, universal health care plan, that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately, because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House. Now they’ve done that, now they’re going for single payer health care. I don’t know why they did this. We think of these people as brilliant in the Alinsky sense. All they’re doing is calling attention to his lies. All they’re doing is calling attention to his deceit. All they’re doing is causing people to go back and get these full-fledged clips and play them all over the place, radio, television. Linda Douglass looks like a sap. Linda Douglass looks like what she is, a propagandist former employee of state-controlled media.
On page 16 of the House bill, it’s right there, and you’ve heard people quote from it. I’m going to summarize it, page 16 : private insurance will become illegal. Insurance companies cannot write new policies, people will lose their existing policy if they change jobs, if they change coverage, or if they change prices. Once any aspect of your private health insurance changes after this bill goes into effect, you can’t renew it. You have to go public option. On page 29 of the House bill, it is admitted that our health care will be rationed. On page 42, the health choices commissioner will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. Page 58, every person will be issued a national ID health card, and it will probably have that stupid logo that reminds me of World War II, frankly. When you look at it, you’ll say the same thing. The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer to pay. Yes, my friends, the federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer, meaning from your account to them. They will be able to debit your account for health expenses. That’s on page 59, go get the bill. I’m summarizing here for you.
On page 72, all private health care plans must conform to government rules to participate in a health care exchange. Any individual who doesn’t have acceptable health care defined by the government will be taxed two-and-a-half percent of their income each year. Officers and employees of government health care bureaucracy will have access to all American financial and personal records, page 195. Page 203, the tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as a tax. I’m quoting from the actual bill. I’ve got numerous examples, but I’m way over time here. But, Ms. Douglas, you’ve been made a sap on this, and you’ve only caused even more attention to be focused on what your boss actually intends and what is in the House bill. It’s there. This campaign of fraud and deceit is exactly why the American people are up in arms, and it’s exactly why you and your party are looking at them with deep contempt. This wasn’t part of the plan. The American people weren’t supposed to figure all this out. They are just supposed to bow down and say, ‘Thank you for caring about us.’