It is inconceivable that President Barack Obama and his top aides did not know as early as 2009 that millions of Americans would lose their health plans under the Affordable Care Act, writes Republican political strategist Karl Rove,
in a Thursday Wall Street Journal op-ed.
For going on four years, Obama repeatedly claimed: "If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
Yet neither the White House nor Democratic Party leaders could have been oblivious that millions of Americans would, indeed, lose their preferred insurance plans, Rove wrote.
For example:
- The Congressional Budget Office told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Dec. 19, 2009, that between 8 million and 9 million Americans would lose their employer-provided coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
- In April 2010, the chief actuary at the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that 14 million would lose their insurance.
- In a March 20, 2010, letter to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Congressional Budget Office reaffirmed that millions would lose their insurance.
Rove sums up: "It is inconceivable that the president, his top aides, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, didn't know about all this. Which raises these questions: Why did Mr. Obama keep saying something that was simply not true? And how did his administration allow him to do so?"
Since presidential speeches are meticulously reviewed by the administration before they are delivered it is hard to believe that "Obama's staff did not know about the CBO estimates," writes Rove.
There is no excuse for such presidential dissembling. "This is a serious breach of trust with the American people," writes Rove.
"We can only hope voters remember this the next time a well-spoken community organizer decides he wants to be president," he says
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