Remember when Barack Obama was announcing his Obamacare plan, touting the 1.5 percent yearly decrease over 10 years in health care costs he had already wrung from health care providers? Yeah, about that:
The president of the American Hospital Association said Thursday that a deal with the White House to cut the growth in health care spending has been "spun way away from the original intent." President Barack Obama described the agreement this week with six major health care organizations as a "watershed event," hailing what the White House said was their promise to reduce spending by 1.5 percentage points annually for a decade, which he said could save as much as $2 trillion over that span. But in a conference call Thursday, President Richard Umbdenstock told 230 member organizations that the agreement had been misrepresented. The groups, he said, had agreed to gradually ramp up to the 1.5 percentage-point target over 10 years - not to reduce spending by that much in each of the 10 years.
That's quite a misunderstanding. But no worries. The White House is here to clear things up:
Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said "the president misspoke" on Monday and again on Wednesday when he described the industry's commitment in similar terms. After providing that account, Ms. DeParle called back about an hour later on Thursday and said: "I don't think the president misspoke. His remarks correctly and accurately described the industry's commitment."
Err, ummm, err. Back to Umbdenstock, who seems to have the president pegged: "There has been a tremendous amount of confusion and frankly a lot of political spin," Umbdenstock said on the call. "And I want to assure you that the American Hospital Association is at the table and a responsible part of this, but that we've been very clear on what we have committed to." Umbdenstock's version has the backing of two lobbyists who were also in on the meeting:
One of the lobbyists, Karen M. Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, said the savings would "ramp up" gradually as the growth of health spending slowed. David H. Nexon, senior executive vice president of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a trade group for makers of medical devices, said "there was no specific understanding" of when the lower growth rate would be achieved. "It's a target over a 10-year period," Mr. Nexon said.
Just as he has done with hedge-fund managers and investors, whose help he needs for buying up toxic assets and avoiding car company bankruptcies, Obama seems intent on publicly humiliating the very people he needs to help him with health-care costs. His inflation of the amount providers promised to cut makes him look like the responsible maker of "tough choices," while the health care providers are stuck being portrayed as "backing off" the promise Obama made for them. Of course, it's exceedingly easy to promise aggressive cuts when you're not the guy who has to do the cutting, and Obama has shown no ability to make "tough choices" when he needs to. The pattern of abuse has not gone unnoticed by corporate leaders:
Executives and trade groups that praised Obama's outreach during his post-election transition period say they have felt less welcome since he took office in January. More troubling, they say, are his populist-tinged, sometimes acid critiques of certain sectors, including large companies that keep some profits overseas to reduce their U.S. tax burden. On Thursday in New Mexico, Obama chastised the credit card industry for sharply raising interest rates or fees with hard-to-find notice. He said consumers should be protected from "all kinds of harsh penalties and fees that you never knew about." Some of the dealings by credit card companies, he said, "are not honest."
Hey, he's got a pulpit, and he's gonna bully until he turns around to ask you to help with his agenda.