November 2, 2013

Bill Scher does not accept that it was a lie to say "if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it."



IN THE COMMENTS, pm317 said: "If you like your plan Video montage from NYMag. What did that Scher guy say -- Obama didn't say it like it was some talking point and that he said it because he was asked about it? How dumb can he be?"

57 comments:

Oso Negro said...

Sadly, Great Stalin has passed, the kulaks have been shouted down, and the peasants taught a proper lesson. What is an aspiring commissar to do in these latter days? Ah, Obamacare! Bill Scher, come on down!

pm317 said...

Who is that nitwit Scher? Never heard of him.

Mid-Life Lawyer said...

I'm happy to report that I have no interest in listening to that gentleman's convoluted nonsense. And any argument that The Comrade did not lie is nonsense, and probably convoluted.

pm317 said...

If you like your plan Video montage from NYMag. What did that Scher guy say -- Obama didn't say it like it was some talking point and that he said it because he was asked about it? How dumb can he be?

Danno said...

I googled him and saw that he was the author of a blog? at liberaloasis.com and contributor to other lefty websites including the Puffington Host. (I am noy dyslexic, but prefer James Taranto's term for HuffPo.) He clearly doesn't seem to have any real knowledge of healthcare issues, say like Ezra Klein.

Tank said...

More lying in service of a lie.

Once you start you can't stop.

Lying liars.

Big Mike said...

Franken's book about Lying Liars? That was about lefties like Obama and Scher, right?

Lyle said...

I'm banned from commenting at bloggingheads, but Bill Scheer, who is a decent guy, is lying himself now. Disgusting.

pm317 said...

I am no fan of Bush's. But the elder Bush lost an election because of his "no new taxes" promise and that seems so much more benign compared to Obama lies and shenanigans. Obama would have lost the election if truth about Benghazi came out and this lie (and the rollout disaster) happened before 2012 (remember his first debate performance?). Fuck the lefty bloggers and the media and the donkey they rode on.

jacksonjay said...

Senate Republicans tried to prevent this in 2010! Every Senate Democrat voted against it! NOW, all of these vulnerable Democrats want the Republicans to save them from the lie they entrenched!

In fact, they are demonizing the Republicans for refusing to save them NOW! Demonizing Republicans is what they do!

You can't make this stuff up!

Lyle said...

Wasserman-Schultz disagrees with Bill Scher.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maher-battles-wasserman-schultz-over-obamacare-obama-clearly-lied-his-no-new-taxes-moment/

Rusty said...

Lyle.

Like George Castanza said," It isn't a lie, Jerry, if YOU believe it."

I would have liked to have been privy to the little -suspension of logic- dance his conscience did to get himself to believe it.

What is the Catholic Church's definition of a lie? Something about withholding information necessary to ...........

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PB said...

If there is greater proof that Obama believers are members of a cult, then I don't know what is.

PB said...

Is cult deprogramming a covered medical or psychiatric service?

Those that aren't snapped back to reality by the prices, deductibles or reduced provider networks are going to need some serious help.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm banned from commenting at bloggingheads…"

What on earth did you do, Lyle?

rehajm said...

Denial is a coping mechanism that gives you time to adjust to distressing situations

-Mayo Clinic

pm317 said...

Lyle @11:17 -- that video is insane.. listening to them is as crazy as listening to some right wing nutcase like Hannity. Aren't there enough people in the middle who want a balanced approach to things and are intellectually honest about cut-throat politics and incompetent and corrupt politicians?

William said...

There are petty lies and there are Great Truths. It's ok to tell a lie to advance a great cause. A sign of nobility even. It's ok to lie about sex, prior membership in the Communist party, and the deficits of the ACA. A too scrupulous regard for truth in these matters just reveals how petty and heartless the questioner is.

Ambrose said...

Almost feel sorry for people who have to spin this. At least Bill Scher is more honest than people claiming: "it's really a Republican plan" or "the Republican sequester denied funds for the web site development" or "the cancelled policies were all scams sold by bad apple insurers".

Lyle said...

Ann,

I feel like it was similar to what happened to Meade at Guns, Lawyers, and Money (if that was the blog and if I remember what happened to him correctly). You can go back to the old forum and read all my posts. I was one of your few defenders.

I basically wasn't a progressive and pissed a lot of the progressive commenters there off, and of course Bob's progressive admin staff off. The admin's reason given to me was that I was incorrigible. I used a vulgar phrase to make point once (it wasn't offensive IMO, but it was vulgar) and they jumped on that and banned me. I was a civil poster compared to all the people who were uncivil to you and who still post there.

I posted under Lyle and Fluffy Foo Foo (came back as that after I was banned the first time). I was also able to briefly post (when Bob overhauled the website) in the Trayvon Martin (Loury and McWhorter)vlog under Lyle7 IIRC and then was banned a third time.

I stand by all my posts there.

pm317 said...

FYI, Ann, the video montage is not showing up.. it's some other video..thx.

Lyle said...

Oh, and I should Bill Maher, not Wasserman-Schultz, says Obama has lied about Obamacare.

Wince said...

"No new taxes" was a pledge Bush Sr. made to his political base. He reneged to compromise with the opposition, an act of "much needed bipartisanship" that the Democrats promptly shoved up his ass to beat him in the next election.

"You can keep your health plan" was a lie to independents and Obama skeptics, if not his outright opponents. Thus, there was no compromise, bipartisanship or "moving to the center" in Obama breaking his promise. Obama lied in order to impose his "extremist agenda', to use one of the Democrats' favorite pejoratives.

Meanwhile, instead of facing the ire of his base, Obama exempted swaths of his base (e.g., unions) from equal application of the law.

Imagine if Bush did that with taxes?

Wait a minute, isn't the Obamacare mandate a tax?

Bayoneteer said...

Not so sir. GWB lost because of three way split of the center right electoral coalition Nixon build and Reagan perfected. Take Perot's 18 million votes, and who voted for Nixon in 1972, Reagan x 2, and himself in 1988, that is to say the "Reagan Democrats") and keep them in the coalition GWB would have sent Clinton back to AR by a slim margin. "Lies" about taxes, etc. was just a talking point for the disgruntled Repub base which the lame ass pundits were happy to spread around like warm peanut butter.

Martin Gale said...

Not a lie? Oh, please.
"If you like your plan AND your doctor, you can keep your plan AND your doctor. Period."
This statement by Obama, repeated dozens of times in dozens of venues, is the pure uncut heroin of deceit. This statement is the Hope Diamond of lies, with every syllable that might possibly convey a modicum of truth meticulously cut away. It is the Hattori Hanzo samurai sword of lies, purged of every nuance that might sully its perfect falseness. Indeed, this lie's total absence of ambiguity or wiggle room constitutes the first known counterexample to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and thereby challenges our very understanding of the Universe. I always knew our president was destined for greatness, I just never knew how great.

n.n said...

The significant feature of Obamacare, which will have universal consequences, is that it consists of little more than massive subsidies, and progressive total cost. This implies stunted or even negative economic development or progress. As with Obama's trillion dollar deficits, Obamacare is designed to delay accountability, while continuing to profit from a progressive fleecing of Americans.

That said, no unalienable right to Life implies no unearned right to medical care. Obama, Reid, Pelosi et al are ghouls and generally greedy bastards. I guess denigrating individual dignity, and devaluing capital and labor, were not sufficient to satiate their voracious appetites.

AmPowerBlog said...

I got you linked up, Althouse, "Obama Lied — White House Aides Debated Preident's Pledge to Americans: 'You Can Keep Your Plan'".

Ann Althouse said...

"FYI, Ann, the video montage is not showing up.. it's some other video..thx."

Fixed.

They have it set up so that when you're done watching one video, it advances to another video, so if you capture the code too late, you get the wrong code. I should have checked, because I knew that was a risk.

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks for the explanation, Lyle.

I think Meade was kicked out of LGM because he continually pushed back against what the bloggers was saying. They didn't want to have someone in the comments who either had to be debated with or would be kind of running the thread. I can understand not wanting to have your platform, with your readership, appropriated by someone. Why doesn't that person start his own blog and do his critiquing from there and be forced to attract his own readership? I do think at some point, and I've experienced it here, you have someone that is not within the spirit of have a debate, but more about taking over what the blogger has built up.

What I really objected to about LGM, however, was that they deleted all his old posts, all his accumulated contributions, which I think is a big breach of faith with the members of your community. Just cut off the person's access and end it there, but don't destroy what you allowed before unless you have more reason than that you got tired of the kind of debate that person brought.

Anyway, thanks for defending me. It's interesting to know that the comments over there were weeded out in a way that made them more antagonistic to me.

CWJ said...

On deleting comment history as well as the commenter.

Hard not to have Orwell's Ministry of Truth come to mind.

Lyle said...

You're welcome Ann, and thanks for your comment.

I think the other problem over at the old bloggingheads forum was that the admin was selective in its punishment, and weren't keeping up with all of the threads and conversation. They would just swoop in on one obscure thing, and would have no understanding that what was being said was connected to weeks, if not months, worth of dialog between people.

jr565 said...

This exchange between Meghan Kelly and a John Lithgow lookalike doofus is so hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWB61qAi1zM

Not only can't they acknowledge that it's a lie, they can't even acnowledge that Obamacare did a single thing to cause insurance companies to stop selling plans (that no longer met the new standards set by Obamacare).

AmPowerBlog said...

Don't get me started at LGM, Althouse.

Meade didn't do anything other than bust the bubble over there. They can't take it. For a long time I was allowed to comment there, because the idiots thought they could mock me. But SEK contacted my department, trying to get me fired as some crazy pervert, and I blogged about it and threw it back in their faces. I also mocked the hell out of them when Paul Campos was outed as "Scamprof," or some such thing, as he'd been blogging anonymously about how awful law schools were, and was called out and outed. I laughed and mocked those f-kers so hard. They banned me after that.

So it's not about taking over a thread. It's about outside commenters coming in and destroying those idiots. Meade tore them up. And yeah, they couldn't have evidence of that at the site, so they deleted everything he'd contributed. They're genuine a-holes.

Bob Boyd said...

When a man loves Obama
Can't keep his mind on nothin' else
He'd trade the world
For the good thing he's found

If he is bad, he can't see it
he can do no wrong
And turn his back on his best friend
If he puts him down

When a man loves a Obama
donate his very last dime
trying to hold on to what he needs

He'd give up all his credibility
And rationalize anything
If Obama said that's the way, it ought to be

When a man loves Obama
Deep down in his soul
he can bring him such misery

If he is playing him for a fool
He's the last one to know
Loving eyes can never see

Marc in Eugene said...

Rusty at 1119, "'A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving.'..." Catechism, first sentence of n 2482. It is a direct quotation from St Augustine's De mendacio, On Lying. Number 2483 continues, "To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth."

Marc in Eugene said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wince said...

KenK,

I said the Democrats opportunistically, deceitfully and hypocritically shoved GHWB's act of compromise and bipartisanship up his ass in order to beat him.

I didn't say it was the reason Clinton won.

jr565 said...

This is from Powerline. Apparently the whole "if you want your insurance and can keep it" discussion is actually old.
Way back in 2010 Mike Enzi passed "If you like your insurance you can keep it" type law, because even back then it was known that Obana had made that promise but that the regulations of obamacare showed that promise to be alie.

Mike Enzi said, when introducing his law (back in 2010!):
" Mr. President, the resolution we are debating today is about keeping a promise. The authors of the new health care law promised the American people that if they liked their current health insurance, they could keep it. On at least 47 separate occasions, President Obama promised: “If you like what you have, you can keep it.”

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has broken that promise. Earlier this year, the administration published a regulation that will fundamentally change the health insurance plans of millions of Americans. The reality of this new regulation is, if you like what you have, you can’t keep it. The new regulation implemented the grandfathered health plan section of the new health care law. It specified how existing health plans could avoid the most onerous new rules and redtape included in the 2,700 pages of the new health care law. …

Unfortunately, the regulation writers at the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services broke all those promises. The regulation is crystal clear. Most businesses–the administration estimates between 39 and 69 percent–will not be able to keep the coverage they have.

Under the new regulation, once a business loses grandfathered status, they will have to comply with all of the new mandates in the law. This means these businesses will have to change their current plans and purchase more expensive ones that meet all of the new Federal minimum requirements. For the 80 percent of small businesses that will lose their grandfathered status because of this regulation, the net result is clear: They will pay more for their health insurance."

So, this whole If you like your health care you can keep it lie isn't even a new one. Dems can't suggest that somehow the admin didn't lie or wasn't aware this would be the result since no only is it clearly laid out in the law itself, but the repubs already noted the discripenecy and tried to pass a law so that it wouldn't happen.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/11/lies-of-obamacare-documented.php

jr565 said...

Also from the article:
"As for individual, as opposed to group plans, the Obama administration said that data were insufficient to predict how many would lose grandfather status, but in any given year the percentage of such policies losing such status would “exceed[] the 40 percent to 67 percent range.”

So, that's the estimate of those would lose their existing health plans purchasing plans for themselves.
No dem can therefor argue that this wasn't known at the time or that Obama was being truthful about it when he said you can keep your plan. PERIOD.
He was dissembling. PERIOD.

n.n said...

Paradoxically, Democrats disapprove of democracy and individual choice, and are virulently opposed to diversity. They resent Planned Government and personal privacy.

James said...

If you have catastrophic health insurance, you can't keep it. That's illegal.
If you have any insurance that doesn't cover all the expansive mandated coverages in Obamacare, you can't keep it. You'll have to get something else.

Bill Scher is a dependable voice to contort in any way to defend the Obama administration. It's frustrating to watch him debate Matt Lewis who also tries to be objective and even-handed.

Paul said...

Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.

Here was Obama flat saying one thing and these Obama lovers just close their eyes and ears and say he didn't say it.

Like the followers of Hitler, Mao, and Lenin, their true believers just well do their bidding regardless of what is shown as a fact.

They will find an excuse, rationalization, or whatever to deny it happened as it happened.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

Let's say you support gay marriage, and want to downplay concerns some people have that gay marriage will undermine traditional marriage. So you tell them, if you like your marriage you can keep it.

Gay marriage becomes law, and now some of the people who opposed it as well as some of the people who supported it find that their spouses have served them with divorces papers.

Did you lie? Or is in what you said something understood about the other party to the marriage contract wanting to keep it in force too?

Unknown said...

Two interesting comments on Obama: One, his frame of reference for the lying. The second, a somewhat more scary state of the Union in light of how many people don't see it.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2013/10/31/god-lies-and-obama/

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/its-all-smoke-and-whiskey/2013/oct/31/millions-lose-coverage-obama-channels-orwell/

Unknown said...

It's also interesting that Bill Mahr has committed two 'random acts of journalism' in a row. Not only is he calling Obama a liar, he recently defended Christians against someone trying to equate Christianity with the violence of radical Islam.

Anonymous said...

LB of the C: Let's say you support gay marriage, and want to downplay concerns some people have that gay marriage will undermine traditional marriage. So you tell them, if you like your marriage you can keep it.

Gay marriage becomes law, and now some of the people who opposed it as well as some of the people who supported it find that their spouses have served them with divorces papers.

Did you lie? Or is in what you said something understood about the other party to the marriage contract wanting to keep it in force too?


Lol. No, it's more like saying "you can keep your marriage", and then piling up such burdensome new regulations and obligations that did not previously apply to your married state - taxes, all manner of new requirements, etc. - such that your spouse is compelled to divorce you to avoid eventualities that were never inherent in the original contract.

Before I looked at your name I thought "that's a brilliant parody of the ridiculous analogies true believers are making in the President's defense". But, Lord help us, you're serious.

Matt Sablan said...

I read his lips, and there were no new taxes. He didn't have sexual relations with that woman.

Sometimes, a lie is so plain and obvious that defending it just makes you look stupid.

Hyphenated American said...

I actually think Obama, the smartest liberal of all times believed his own claim. No man can speak with such confidence, dozens if times, speak so unequivocally, swear on his mothers grave, and yet not believe it. Impossible, unless we are talking about the devil himself. No, if don't believe in any supernatural explanations or conspiracy theories, Obama did believe that "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan". True though, that a toothless redneck republican from Loserville, Alabama knew that obamacare would make the insurance plans of tens of millions Of people illegal, but Obama did not.
I personally believe that Obama is an honest, hardworking man, smarter than any liberal alive, and yet he is dumber than a doorknob.

gk1 said...

Why bother engaging liberals over this? I made the mistake of engaging with one last weekend when I stated a clear fact that the deficit has increased by 5 trillion dollars since Obama took office. His common response was none of that spending over the last 5 years Obama was responsible for it was G.W bush's "wars" (even the good one the liberals said they supported) I live in the bay area and there are very few liberals I have found that can ever criticize Obama in any way. That is what is going on here with this talking head exchange. Its getting tiresome, so why bother?

Conserve Liberty said...

Of course he lied. The trouble with Truth is, when you tell it, the outcome is what it should be, not what you've decided it should be.

ACA is a fraud wrapped in a lie resting on a foundation of felonious appropriation.

KenH said...

So, whoever this unimportant assclown is, it can also be safely deduced his a learning-disabled total retard. Must be related to Ugabe, or Biden.

Harmon said...

I think Obama might be a sociopath.

See http://www.buzzle.com/articles/sociopath-characteristics.html

When I read this list, it amazed me how closely They seem to fit.

Gospace said...

Lyle @11:17 -- that video is insane.. listening to them is as crazy as listening to some right wing nutcase like Hannity.

I don't like listening to Hannity. Hos voice grates on me. But, to call him a nutcase is something else. He generally spouts off the tryth, which is more then can be said about the NY Times/CBS/ABC/NBC/CNN.

Krontekag said...

Left Bank of the Charles said...

"...Gay marriage becomes law, and now some of the people who opposed it as well as some of the people who supported it find that their spouses have served them with divorces papers."

Incomplete analogy. What if ALL blondes served divorce papers (as a product all of them would have to file for divorce as they are no longer on offer)?
Brunettes too, but immediately you were proposed to by brunettes with unfeasibly large tits, who wanted you to pay for ongoing shopping sprees and new cars (ie additional, perhaps unnecessary features, at a significantly higher cost)?


Krontekag said...

Left Bank of the Charles said...

"...Gay marriage becomes law, and now some of the people who opposed it as well as some of the people who supported it find that their spouses have served them with divorces papers."

Incomplete analogy. What if ALL blondes served divorce papers (as a product all of them would have to file for divorce as they are no longer on offer)?
Brunettes too, but immediately you were proposed to by brunettes with unfeasibly large tits, who wanted you to pay for ongoing shopping sprees and new cars (ie additional, perhaps unnecessary features, at a significantly higher cost)?


Rusty said...

Thank you Marc.
Democrats love to lie. Even when the truth would serve them better.