Comedian and liberal political commentator Bill Maher says President Barack Obama should have been upfront that people would lose the health insurance they like under the Affordable Care Act.
But Maher believes that if he had, Obamacare likely would never have passed.
"I don't think Obama should have lied to people," Maher said Tuesday on
CNN's Piers Morgan Live. Host Morgan, a supporter of Obamacare and native of Great Britain where healthcare is provided by the government, agreed with Maher that Obama's repeated promise was "a barefaced lie."
Republican politicians and conservative pundits alike said Obama wasn't being honest when he said that his signature healthcare plan would allow anyone who liked his or her insurance policy to keep it. Rules written after the bill passed made virtually all the "grandfathered" policies illegal.
"The thing passed by this much," Maher said holding his thumb and forefinger inches apart. Had Obama told people that many of them would lose the insurance they like it wouldn't have had a chance, he admitted.
The White House's insistence that Obama was out of the loop is "not credible and not excusable," Maher said. "I thought he was the detail guy."
Related story: