Days after telling Republicans to stop "frightening" the American people, the president spells out a doomsday scenario if health care reform doesn't pass.
Guy who told the GOP to ‘stop frightening’ Americans uses scare tactics to push health care reform
President Obama reportedly told Republicans in the House to “stop trying to frighten the American people” Dec. 9. And back in July, he said that “these folks need to stop scaring everybody.”
Then how does the president justify what he said in an interview with ABC’s outgoing anchor Charles Gibson?
If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee, that the people who are watching tonight, your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you. Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. And the federal government will go bankrupt, because Medicare and Medicaid are on a trajectory that are unsustainable, and this actually provides us the best chance of starting to bend the cost curve on the government expenditures in Medicare and Medicaid.
That’s a pretty scary scenario. Is his “stop scaring people” admonition only for his opponents?
In all fairness, Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable, as is Social Security. But Harry Reid’s and Nancy Pelosi’s health care reform proposals don’t address those issues.
Sources:
The Hill, Dec. 9, 2009
Obama to GOP: ‘Stop trying to frighten the American people’
ABC News, Dec. 16, 2009
TRANSCRIPT: Charles Gibson Interviews President Barack Obama
The White House, July 29, 2009
