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Posts Tagged ‘White House Press’

Breaking: White House: Pass Obamacare Now or Its Dead; Dems Scramble Behind Closed Doors to Write Final Bill

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

President Obama and Congressional Democrats are scrambling to draft yet another version of Obamacare to assist House passage of Obamacare by the White House deadline of March 18, 2010

Fox News is reporting, building on prior AP reporting, that the White House has today increased pressure on Democrats in Congress, especially the House Democrats, putting out word that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats must either pass Obamacare through the House of Representatives now, before the Easter recess begins on March 18, 2010, or the entire effort at comprehensive health care reform will die.

Over the past few days, the White House has indicated it wants a vote in the House by March 18, and Congressional Democratic leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have resisted agreeing to any deadline. However, with the new, increased pressure today, Congressional Democratic sources say that they are “on the same page” as the White House:

A House Democratic leadership source tells Fox there is something approaching convergence on the White House’s March 18 deadline for a vote on the Senate health care bill.

“Everyone is now on same page,” the leadership source said about the March 18 deadline. “We understand the White House believes that would be optimal timing. But they understand we are not wedding ourselves to any deadlines.”

With today’s developments, it now appears that the year-long health care debate finally has a date certain where either Obamacare will pass or it will not, and that deadline appears to March 18, 2010. The next eight days may decide the historical trajectory of the United States, as strict federal control over the entire health care delivery system, 16% of the US Economy, will surely substantially alter the direction of the American economy and political system for decades to come.

Ironically, after over a year of debate over health care reform, and lots of talk regarding cooperation between President Obama/Democratic Congressional Leadership and the GOP on writing the final version of the bill at the health care summit 10 days ago, Democrats continue to scramble behind closed doors to write a final version to the liking of Democrats in Congress. Of course, no Republicans are involved in any way with these last minute drafting efforts by Obama and the Congressional Democratic leadership, despite the clear preference of the American people for such joint drafting to occur. Fox News’s Major Garrett describes the frantic backroom drafting occurring now:

In reality, the White House isn’t budging and the House Democratic leadership is trying. But it can’t vote on the Senate bill until it has a fully drafted and CBO (Congressional Budget Office)-scored bill to “fix” the Senate bill’s imperfections.

But the so-called “fix” bill isn’t ready and there is no expectation CBO will deliver preliminary cost estimates Wednesday. That pushes the schedule back because House Democratic leaders cannot begin the final whip process (counting “yes” and “no” votes) until it has a full “fix” bill with a concrete CBO score on costs, revenues and deficit implications.

In other words, there’s a lot of work left to be done and not much time to finish it. What may well be happening is House Democrats and the White House are agreeing to disagree — on the timing, not the objective.

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White House Spokesmen Lie, Claim No GOP Health Care Plan Exists

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer writes this morning that "Will the Republicans Post Their Health Plan… and When?" despite the GOP's posting of a health plan in October 2009

Despite the indisputable fact that the Republican Party posted its health care plan on gop.gov in October 2009, and the fact that the White House website itself has a link to the GOP plan, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer authored a blog post at 5am this morning smearing the GOP for not providing a health care plan prior to the vaunted health care summit set for Thursday. Yesterday, lead White House spokesman made a similar statement, imploring the GOP to post their plan online.

One can only wonder if Pfeiffer and Gibbs planned this one-two misleading punch in advance or if it is just a comedy of errors. Politico’s Chris Frates sets the record straight yesterday, after Gibbs’ comment, regarding the availability online of the GOP health care plan, entitled “Gibbs may need to read the White House website more closely”:

During today’s press briefing, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he hoped that Republicans would post their reform plans online.

“The president posted ideas of his on the White House website today. We hope Republicans will post their ideas either on their website, or we’d be happy to post them on ours, so that the American people could come to one location and find out the parameters of what will largely be discussed on Thursday,” Gibbs said.

Turns out the House Republicans’ plan has been online since October and already has its own link on the White House website. The White House encourages readers to “read more about House and Senate ideas from both parties on their websites.” The link sends readers to a House GOP website that includes a one-page summary sheet and the legislative text of their proposals.

Pfeiffer’s headline is truly Orwellian, considering the fact that the GOP plan has been online since October 2009: “Will the Republicans Post Their Health Plan… and When?” The mainstream media, other than this lone article by Frates at Politico, appears to be giving Pfeiffer and Gibbs a pass on their explicitly false and misleading statements about the alleged lack of a posted GOP health care plan. Instead, ABC’s Rick Klein calls Pfeiffer’s post a “dare” while ignoring the false and misleading statements, and Time’s Mark Halperin simply notes that the White House “pounces” with the Pfeiffer post.  The Hill.com’s Michael O’Brien goes so far as to spin the obviously false and misleading statements by Pfeiffer and Gibbs on behalf of the White House (Dems “forced GOP Leaders’ hand” to submit the House bill, the GOP Senators “never crafted” a plan because it relies on “series of piecemeal bills and amendments submitted by different senators”). Of course, no Republicans are sought out and quoted in response to the Gibbs or Pfeiffer false and misleading claims by the mainstream media authors listed above.

Not a single article by any mainstream media organization (besides Frates’s article above) notes that the GOP has had a health care plan posted online at gop.gov since October 2009, let alone mention that the Whitehouse.gov website has posted a link to it. Instead, the media is pushing the narrative that the the White House has instructed them to push: The GOP has no plan, and the White House desperately wants to cut a bipartisan deal, but cannot because of the GOP’s lack of a plan. It is amazing to see the American media so compliant and agreeable to repost Obama’s talking points, especially considering the indisputable facts disprove those talking points explicitly.   This failure of the media to report facts (GOP plan posted since October 2009, White House site has link to same), and report of talking points instead (Pfeiffer and Gibbs: Where’s the GOP plan?), on this issue is likely foreshadowing of the coverage we’ll see of Thursday’s health care summit, as it appears the establishment media is fully on board with Obama in his last ditch push to ram Obamacare through Congress.

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