Obama Misrepresents Heritage’s Research to Sell Health Care Plan


President Obama this morning cited The Heritage Foundation’s research in an attempt to sell his health care package as a “middle of the road, centrist approach.” We take great exception to this misuse of our work and abuse of our name. This is but the latest act in a campaign to sell this big-government program as a moderate law that incorporates conservative ideas. Americans should not be fooled.

Let’s be very clear: We oppose this new law because it is a radical new intrusion into the daily lives of all Americans and a massive takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy. We view the President’s health care law as inimical to our national interests and offensive to the historic American dedication to the principle of self-government.

Our research has shown that President Obama’s health approach is financially unsustainable and will ultimately lead to health care rationing, a lower quality of care and a greater degree of dependence on government. We deplore those outcomes and are committed to making the intellectual case for this law’s repeal.

What part of that does President Obama not understand?

Specifically, President Obama told NBC’s Today Show host Matt Lauer that a centerpiece of his health care package, “in terms of the exchange, just being able to pool and improve the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market—that originated from The Heritage Foundation.”

But the President knows full well—or he ought to learn before he speaks—that the exchanges we and most others support are very different from those in his package. True exchanges are simply a market mechanism to enable families to choose their health insurance. President Obama’s exchanges, by contrast, are a vehicle to introduce sweeping regulation and federal standardization on health insurance.

Moreover, we completely disagree that President Obama’s law improves the purchasing power of individuals in the insurance market. On the contrary, it will create a staggeringly complex and costly insurance system that will drive up premiums for Americans.

The President’s health care law is only eight days old, and already it has cost our economy billions of dollars. Late last week, AT&T alone took a $1 billion charge because of the impact of the bill, and the consulting firm Towers Watson told the Wall Street Journal that the total hit this year will reach nearly $14 billion. It is sad, given the present state of our economy, that the President’s party in Congress has reacted not by trying to find ways to spare the jobs that will be lost because of this law. Instead, they are trying to intimidate companies that take such charges with threats that they will be hauled in before the Energy and Commerce Committee.

It is also revealing that President Obama is still struggling to sell the American people on a bill that he and his party rammed through passage by a narrow margin in the face of bipartisan opposition. It is a sign of desperation that he, his handlers and the media echo chamber are reverting to the campaign practice of selling the President and his policies as centrist, middle of the road and aisle-crossing. As the country has found out the hard way in the past 15 months, they are none of those things.

The President has made a habit of using conservative talking points when trying to sell a liberal ideology because he knows that this is a center-right country that rejects his agenda when articulated honestly. His supporters have even tried to pin the blame of the potentially unconstitutional individual mandate on us. This approach brushes over the details of our research and ignores our ability to evolve past further developed research.

Over 16,000 new IRS agents will be hired by the government to enforce the President’s mandate on the American people. The President’s health care plan also raises premiums, taxes, and costs while lowering quality, and expanding Medicaid. These are not conservative ideas.

And let’s be clear, these are not ideas Heritage has ever, or would ever, support.

We made every effort over the past year to share our ideas for better health care reform with the President and members of both parties in Congress, but were not invited behind the closed doors. Now, after the bill is signed, it seems the President wishes we were along for the ride. We were not. We remain fervently opposed to the President’s partisan plan, and urge its immediate repeal. This is not common politics, it’s common sense.

Had President Obama limited his bill to centrist elements, he would have won wide bipartisan support for effective reform both within Congress and among the American people. He would have won it, too, at a fraction of the cost of this intolerable, huge and intrusive legislation. He would not now be facing popular rejection by the American people. And he would not need to misrepresent Heritage policies and positions in an attempt to give his radical health plan the patina of respectability.


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President Obama fully understands...

rbdwiggins (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 7:37PM EST (link)

He’s a willing accomplice to an anti-American ideology that can’t survive the truth.

“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.” – Ronald Reagan

Obama's main concern during the "debate" was

edwlstr Wednesday, March 31st at 9:03PM EST (link)

“his presidency” not the good of the country. Liberals are mentally ill people as Dr. Rossiter amply proves in his book on the topic of liberalism. They, and Obama, remind me of the seagulls in “Finding Nemo”. Always with the “mine, mine” cries. My healthcare bill, my presidency, my ideology. Congress behaved like a kindergarten class in the suburbs in early September: too early for the little yuppie larva to have learned, or learned to feign, sharing.

 
 

Has the Heritage Foundation asked NBC for equal time to

usedtobelib Tuesday, March 30th at 7:50PM EST (link)

to refute Obama’s claim? Hope so.

In addition, Mr. Feulner needs

izoneguy (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 7:56PM EST (link)

to get on Hannity, The Mark Levin Show, Brian & The Judge, Rush and yes the Today Show. And any other lefty show that he could get on……Heritage should at least blanket the lefty shows with press releases.

Thank You Mr. Feulner

The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.

 
 

Snap

jaykali (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 7:55PM EST (link)

Too bad no one will hear this. The mainstream media is completely overrun by the left.

 

OK, so the Heritage Foundation doesn't like Obamacare.

Tbone (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 8:09PM EST (link)

What part of just calling the President a LIAR don’t you understand?

You dance around the fact that the guy outright lies and then stroll through the well known evils of the bill.

Until conservative leaders start speaking clearly about the lying, dirty dealing, bribery, extortion and fascism of the Left, you just look like your arguing their points.

Black is black, white is white. This is why Palin connects and people like you don’t.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

He's writing to a different audience Tbone...

Aaron Gardner (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 8:15PM EST (link)

We need both the Fuelner’s and the Palin’s if we are to win and govern.

conform and celebrate diversity….or else!!!

“We’d be much better off if We The People had desired small government enough to keep it.” acat


Yes, as in we're not likely to see the representative

redneck_hippie (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 8:26PM EST (link)

of Heritage in a biker jacket. Nor do I expect inflammatory language.

I thought the “patina of respectability” was rather well played.

So, consider the source. misrepresentation doesn’t convey the slap of ‘Lie,” but you’d have to be a stone idjit not to know it for that, anyway.


Activists Taking Action: Unified Patriots

 

That would be the Lindsey Graham branch

Tbone (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 10:53PM EST (link)

of the Republican Party?

Independents are looking for clear talkers. It is they who decide elections.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

Not hardly

Beaglescout (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 11:03PM EST (link)

Graham is from the Democrat wing of the Republican party. That’s why he gives us so much agita.

“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”

–Alexander Hamilton
 
 

Winning may be not so hard.

edwlstr Wednesday, March 31st at 9:10PM EST (link)

But governing will be challenging with a broken system and economy, a population made skeptical by a tax and power rapacious administration, and an oposition at the ready to sabotage real progress at every turn. These liberals only want to win and win at any cost ( to us). What ever the outcome, if they win, they’re satisfied. So prepare for a scorched earth contest in 2010 and 2012. They will burn the crops as they retreat.

 
 
 

OBAMA LIES AGAIN

trotskyshammer Tuesday, March 30th at 8:52PM EST (link)

Tired of Waking Up to a Lying Communist President?

Want to Stop Obama Fast?

Here’s How We Do: http://commieblaster.com/velvet-revolution/

 

Giving radical health plan an air of respectabllity

jojoe Tuesday, March 30th at 8:53PM EST (link)

Leave it to BO to jump on the Heritage coat tails!

 

That just tears it.

snowshooze (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 9:14PM EST (link)

Edwin is great.
I’m joining Heritage.
Mark

too bad his comments just

rascott Tuesday, March 30th at 10:31PM EST (link)

contradict Heritage’s own HC policy of the last decade +. See link below.

 
 

Heritage Foundation vs. Obama

silver25u Tuesday, March 30th at 9:48PM EST (link)

Compare this Heritage Foundation package from 2003 to ObamaCare.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Testimony/Laying-the-Groundwork-for-Universal-Health-Care-Coverage

Who said: “Today there is a legal and moral obligation on society to provide some level of health care to those who become ill. … This translates into a requirement on individuals to enroll themselves and their dependents in at least a basic health plan – one that at the minimum should protect the rest of society from large and unexpected medical costs incurred by the family. And as any social contract, there would also be an obligation on society. To the extent that the family cannot reasonably afford reasonable basic coverage, the rest of society, via government, should take responsibility for financing that minimum coverage. To the extent that the family cannot reasonably afford reasonable basic coverage, the rest of society, VIA GOVERNMENT, should take responsibility for financing that minimum coverage” ?

Hey, silver25u - thanks for the link

izoneguy (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 10:02PM EST (link)

BUT YOU LEFT OUT SOME PARTS:

The obligations on individuals does not have to be a “hard” mandate, in the sense that failure to obtain coverage would be illegal. It could be a “soft” mandate, meaning that failure to obtain coverage could result in the loss of tax benefits and other government entitlements. In addition, if federal tax benefits or other assistance accompanied the requirement, states and localities could receive the value of the assistance forgone by the person failing to obtain coverage, in order to compensate providers who deliver services to the uninsured family.

What he is saying is this: Use your welfare check to buy insurance.
Or if you don’t then you will have to pay for some of the health care costs from said welfare check.

The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.

Agreed.

silver25u Tuesday, March 30th at 11:32PM EST (link)

Generally agree with you. My main point is that BO is not the first person to advocate an “individual mandate” (wide variation in proposals, and I still don’t like govt saying must buy product x). When you look at the broad concepts from the link (and what some conservatives have supported) and ObamaCare there is some overlap, it is the execution where they significantly diverge. I just wish/except people will oppose Obamacase based upon actual history and not partisan talking points.

Silver,

NoDoze Wednesday, March 31st at 12:03AM EST (link)

You sound like one of those “Republicans and Bush did it first” liberals. You are trying to draw an equivalency that doesn’t work.

Ed Feulner is the president of Heritage Foundation, and he said that Obamacare is not approved by Heritage. The article you cited was written by Stuart Butler, who said that it was his personal views only.

Obamacare is UNSUSTAINABLE. It doesn’t make any difference who states opinions about the details of the plan. IT WILL NOT WORK. That is the objection of Conservatives.

 
 
 

Yeah thats why Heritage

rascott Tuesday, March 30th at 10:29PM EST (link)

and Ed should really be taken with a grain of salt. The facts are the facts, that Heritage did advocate for the individual mandate back in the 90s, up through Romneycare.

Izoneguy, i agree with your quote. I would say we are just talking on the margins here though. A “soft mandate” could take the form of refundable tax credit, rather than a fine, and the economic impact is the same. “loss of tax benefits” means anything and everything. Loose your home interest deductibility, lose any other itemized deduction. There are a lot of tax benefits that aren’t welfare checks.

Point being, Heritage is not a trustworthy organization in that they contradict their own policy recommendations.

Why is this troll still here?

Flagstaff (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 11:06PM EST (link)

Or did I miss some of his redeeming social value somewhere?

“The press is so powerful in its image-making role that it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”– Malcolm X, Audubon Ballroom, December 13, 1964

 

I think it shows their position evolved with new evidence

Beaglescout (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 11:07PM EST (link)

Romneycare was based on Heritage’s old plan. Its failures should have fed back into Heritage’s current plan. That’s how intelligent people do things, by deciding things based on the best available evidence. And that is not how Obama does things. That’s why he wants to implement a hundred year old plan that has never increased the happiness of the people, single-payer medicine and a socialist economy.

“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”

–Alexander Hamilton

Read Heritage's NEW take on Health Care Reform

izoneguy (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 11:12PM EST (link)

rascott:

Not an opinion expressed 8 years ago:

http://www.heritage.org/Initiatives/Health-Care

Read everything – not cherry picked paragraphs.

The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.

New Trumps Old, but Old Still Exsists

silver25u Tuesday, March 30th at 11:36PM EST (link)

Correct, their new stance on HCR is more relevant as it *should* incorporate lessons learned, but that does not mean previous positions disappear and do not attach to those that proposed them (see: RomneyCare).

 
 
 
 
 

Maybe. But here's a better idea, Ed.

LibertarianHawk (Diary) Tuesday, March 30th at 11:47PM EST (link)

How about just not providing cover to leftists on matters like these in the first place?

I’m out in the net trenches one day, discussing a really wretched idea about automatic conversions of 401K assets into annuities…something the Obama Administration is already trying to put into place.

The guy heading up the effort at Treasury is a former Brookings staffer. And somebody pointed me to a paper that he had written on the subject in 2006.

One of his co-authors? Somebody from the Heritage Foundation!!

What gives? You guys have done a lot of great work, I know. You don’t need to establish your bona fides with me. But why not steer clear of these odious efforts to steer (ie, control) people into things they may or may not want to do with their money?

This is exactly the kind of treatment you can expect when you try to reach across the aisle in this fashion. You become nothing but ideological cover for the left.

And let’s face it, Heritage did in fact put its imprimatur on a mandate to compel the purchase of health insurance.

 

I wish

ihateliberals Wednesday, March 31st at 7:15AM EST (link)

i had the money to help the Heritage Foundation publish this in a Full page ad in all the major news Papers or better yet a series of Bill Boards in prominent and strategic locations. This needs to be put where the News media can’t neglect it.

 

Mr. Feulner how do you respond to this link

davidstone Wednesday, March 31st at 7:58AM EST (link)

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Graphics/2010/022310-Bill-comparison.aspx

from Kaiser news. It compares Obamacare to the Republican alternative plan to Hillarycare in 1993-4 and Boehner’s plan.

I prefer Paul Ryan’s plan mysel and hate Obamacare. It seems though that Obamacare lines up with what the Republicans were trying to pass during the 1993 – 1994 healthcare debate. That does not mean it was good, I did not like it then (and still don’t). The bill was introduced by Senator Chafee and had cosponsors including Bob Dole, Kit Bond, Bob Bennett, Orrin Hatch, Dick Lugar, and Chuck Grassley. It looks like the big difference between the two (and I am sure this has a great deal to do with ideology) is that the Republican alternative offered tax credits to poor to buy private insurance where Obamacare expands public insurance (Medicaid – which is an unpopular program). Also, the Republican plan has tort reform where Obamacare does not (but neither does Ryan’s plan if I remember correctly – odd in that I think tort reform is important). Other than that, they are very similar. The Republican plan was never scored by the CBO but I can’t believe the cost would have been radically different.

 

The CEO's

gwalt Wednesday, March 31st at 8:18AM EST (link)

The CEO’s need to be coached and prepped by Ari Fleischer and some other media mavens. This will be used as “evil” CEO’s want to take away your healthcare.

This could be a great opportunity, if not the only opportunity to stop this in its tracks. Lets hope so.

Turn the tables on Waxman!!

“A lot of briefing for a 2 hr. special with Dan Rather. Saw the show & wonder why we bothered”. –Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries (January 27, 1982)

 

Whose Business is it, Anyway?

federalist45 Wednesday, March 31st at 11:03AM EST (link)

Let’s go back to the single, most fundamental question in the debate: Whose business is healthcare? Is it the individual’s? Is it the State’s? Is the federal government’s? I believe it is the individual’s business, and his alone (or his and his doctor’s). Period. So, let’s not only repeal Obamacare, but turn the clock back and repeal a whole host of other government involvement in healthcare, from Medicare and Medicaid to government meddling in the insurance business. Let’s RESTORE the liberty the Radical Left has stolen from WE, THE PEOPLE. Healthcare liberty is a great place to start.

 

The usual suspects.

realskinny (Diary) Wednesday, March 31st at 5:01PM EST (link)

Chafee, Dole, Bond, Bennett, Hatch, Lugar, and Grassley. And you call the ’93 plan a “Republican Plan”? This is the same crew of left-wing Reps. who gave us the Obama Pelosi Reid Criminal Congress and Gangster Government.