Progressives Admit Obamacare's Financial Lies- Giving Up On " It Will Save Money" Story

Remember all those claims about Obamacare? The President and his lemmings promised that just by passing the government takeover of medicine, health care costs will be cut, the budget will come into balance, the lamb will to lie down with the lion, the NY Mets will win the World Series, and seniors will no longer drive in the left lane of the Florida Turnpike going 30 miles an hour with their right blinkers on. Obamacare opponents did not believe those promises, especially the most outrageous of them, the part about Obamacare saving money. Now the President's progressive allies are also abandoning the tale that Obamacare will save money.  

Not that they are going to admit that their original pitch was a lie, they are now going to focus on the fact that this is an imperfect bill and it will be fixed. According to Politico:

Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and deficit, and instead stressing a promise to "improve it."

The messaging shift was circulated this afternoon on a conference call and PowerPoint presentation organized by FamiliesUSA — one of the central groups in the push for the initial legislation. The call was led by a staffer for the Herndon Alliance, which includes leading labor groups and other health care allies. It was based on polling from three top Democratic pollsters, John Anzalone, Celinda Lake, and Stan Greenberg

Herndon Alliance is funded by some of the biggest progressive lobbyists in the country including The AARP, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Health Care for America Now, MoveOn, and La Raza, and many others.

The new pitch warns to stay away from the cost argument, instead assume that Americans are stupid and don't even know that the bill was passed.  It urges Democrats, to concentrate on little bits of information, and tell those human interest stories that were so "popular" during the battle to pass the bill. The even have a "fill in the blanks" example, where you can change your "personal story" depending on who you are talking to:

Two weeks ago the Medicare Trustees issued a report trumpeting savings due to Obamacare.  The Trustees Report is issued by major political appointees of the administration, people such as Turbo-Tax Timothy Geithner, Kathleen Sebelius, recess appointment to run Medicare Dr. Donald M. "Lets Kill Grandma" Berwick, and Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis. In other words people with a vested interest in the acceptance of Obamacare.

 The chief actuary of Medicare, took the very unusual step of issuing a report politely declaring the trustees didn't know what they were talking about.

"The Trustees Report is necessarily based on current law; as a result of questions regarding the operations of certain Medicare provisions, however, the projections shown in the report do not represent the “best estimate” of actual future Medicare expenditures. The purpose of this memorandum is to present an alternative scenario to help illustrate and quantify the potential magnitude of the cost understatement under current law."

The main reason is the projected reduction of payments to doctors will never happen:

 In particular, Medicare payment rates for physician services as determined by the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) system are scheduled to be reduced by roughly 30 percent over the next 3 years. For most of the other categories of Medicare providers, the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), as amended, calls for a reduction in payment rate updates equal to the increase in economy-wide multifactor productivity. As described in more detail below, in our view (and that of the independent outside experts we consulted), neither of these update reductions is sustainable in the long range, and Congress is very likely to legislatively override or otherwise modify the reductions in the future to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries continue to have access to health care services.

An earlier report, issued in April by the Actuary's office also signaled an ominous future for Medicare.

Now the progressives that run our government and their allies are looking to back away from from the fiscal promises about Obamacare, and replacing it with a spin and glitz story for a public that they believe are too stupid to see the truth.

Its now official Obamacare will bankrupt the country. The progressives know it, have admitted it to themselves, but won't tell the voters. Unfortunately for them, the voters are not as stupid as they think.

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