Apparently appalled that President Obama clearly needs outside help to come to the realization that something must be done to fix the mess resulting from his "keep your plan" guarantee, Josh Gerstein at the Politico opened a Monday afternoon report by claiming that "President Bill Clinton — the man President Barack Obama once dubbed his 'Secretary of Explaining Stuff' — once again has some explaining of his own to do with the Obama White House."
Hmm. It would appear that Obama has some fixing to do, and may not have been interested in doing anything to genuinely address the mess he, Kathleen Sebelius, the Affordable Care Act, and thousands of pages of restrictive regulations have wrought. Excerpts from Gerstein's grievous report follow the jump (bolds are mine):
Obama’s critic-in-chief strikes again
President Bill Clinton — the man President Barack Obama once dubbed his “Secretary of Explaining Stuff” — once again has some explaining of his own to do with the Obama White House.
In an interview released Tuesday, Clinton called for a fix to the Affordable Care Act that would put an end to the wave of insurance cancellations that have been a public relations disaster for the White House and prompted Obama to apologize last week for having repeatedly assured Americans that they could keep their insurance if they liked it.
Clinton’s endorsement of legislation to address the cancellation issue again put the former president in a place Obama had refused to go — a familiar spot for the Oval Office’s current occupant.
“I personally believe, even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got,” Clinton said during a discussion of Obamacare problems in an interview with Carlos Watson on the web site Ozymandias. The former president did defend the overall impact of the law — but in backing the idea of changing it to address canceled health policies he backed an approach Obama has yet to embrace.
At Tuesday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney downplayed the notion of any disagreement between Clinton and Obama — telling reporters the former president was still Obamacare’s “explainer-in-chief. However, the spokesman carefully sidestepped the question of whether the two men share views on possible solutions.
I've got news for you, Josh. Obamacare isn't just a "public relations disaster" (typical out-of-touch inside the Beltway arrogance). It has been a financial disaster for millions of Americans already, with many more millions more to come. Bill "I Feel Your Pain," for all of his considerable and very unforgiveable faults, at least has geniune empathy. If Barack Obama does, he's been hiding it well, especially now, especially since HealthCare.gov's disastrous rollout.
It's Obama and his administration which needs to correct the effects of the false guarantee — "If you like your plan, you can keep you plan" — he made to Americans (and it was a guarantee, not just an abstract promise). Bill Clinton gets that, and it really telling that he clearly feels that he had to be the one to apply the pressure, lest the entire Democratic Party be dragged down a political abyss which could wipe out his wife's 2016 presidential chances.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
