Well, that settles it. Sunday on ABC's "This Week" (video here) New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand admitted that "We all knew" that Obamacare's core guarantee — "If you like your plan-doctor-provider, you can keep your plan-doctor-provider" — was false. That's "we" as in "all of us Democrats."
There's no wiggle room in what Gillibrand said, as will be demonstrated after the jump. Also note how guest host Martha Raddatz, with her use of "we," admitted to viewers that she's on the same team with Washington's Democrats two and possibly three different times (HT Truth Revolt via Ed Driscoll).
Let's start with the program's opening framing.
Jonathan Karl's introduction of the segment involved made it clear that Obama's "repeated vow" and "broken promise" was a discussion topic:
Gillibrand appeared after a predictable back-and-forth involving Obamabot David Plouffe, former Bush adviser Matthew Dowd, and ABC Chief Business Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis.
Here's how it went, beginning with Raddatz's first question after the introductory niceties (bolds are mine):
RADDATZ: I'm going to ask you the same question, can President Obama regain the trust of the American people?
GILLIBRAND: Of course, he can. Because, Martha, what this is about is everyday people needing access to Affordable Health Care. They don't want their coverage dropped because of a pre-existing condition or when they get sick. They want their kids covered up to 26. And they want to have preventive care covered. And that's what this bill does.
So, once we get over this implementation issue, we will then.
RADDATZ: If we get over this implementation...
GILLIBRAND: We will.
They can fix this. This is a fixable problem. So, once they fix it, people will see, I have an opportunity to cover my family. And Martha, I was in the emergency room just last week with my son who had an asthma attack and took too many puffs on his puffer. And I looked in the eyes of all the other mothers in the emergency room, these are mothers who don't have health care, who may not -- this may be their only access.
RADDATZ: But whose trust has been shattered.
GILLIBRAND: No, but once -- that's an implementation issue. Once you get beyond it, you then say, look, oh my gosh.
RADDATZ: And you think we'll get beyond it?
GILLIBRAND: We will.
You know, what though, see emergency room is covered. Do you how much it is to go to an emergency room? You get a bill. It's very expensive.
RADDATZ: Let me ask you this, I want to go back to this implementation, because we can't quite go forward yet. Did you feel misled by Obama?
GILLIBRAND: He should have just been more specific, because the point is if you're offered by a terrible health care plan that the minute you get sick, you're going to have to go into bankruptcy, those plans should never be offered.
RADDATZ: So, were you misled?
GILLIBRAND: He should have just been specific.
No, we all knew, the whole point of the plan is to cover things people need, like preventive care, birth control, pregnancy. How many women the minute they get pregnant might risk their coverage? How many women paid more because of their gender because they might get pregnant? ...
Gillibrand's excuse-makers may try to claim that she was talking about the HealthCare.gov web site. But that excuse doesn't fly, simply because she went straight into all the wonderful "things people need," which was the primary motivation behind Kathleen Sebelius's tight grandfathering regulations.
The mission of those regs was to kill off as many individual plans which customers liked as possible so they couldn't keep them. This was done so that all of those "things people need" — like pregancy coverage for 60 year-olds, and chemical dependency coverage people who never take more than an aspirin — could be forced upon the unwilling.
Gillibrand said on Sunday that "we (Democrats) all knew" that. But they voted for the Affordable Care Act anyway, and continued to give it their unwavering support for the next 3-1/2 years.
On Friday, Byron York of the Washington Examiner tallied up “27 Democratic senators who promised you could keep your health coverage.”
Kirsten Gillibrand, their fellow Democrat senator, who’s not up for reelection until 2018, just transformed them all into speedbumps.
Only if their electoral opponents make it so. The press will pretend that what Gillibrand said never happened.
This kind of statement made by a Republican about his or her party's politicians would be blanketing the air waves and TV screens by now, but of course that's not happening.
One early example: On Sunday, the Associated Press mentioned Gillibrand's appearance on "This Week," but focused only on her promotion of a bill to do something about sexual assaults in the military. Apparently, the fact that "we (Democrats) all knew" that President Obama's unconditional "you can keep your plan" guarantee was false wasn't newsworthy.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
