Obama admits health care sales pitch was wrong

Phillip Klein:

With a little noted remark at an appearance in Cannon Falls, Minn., on Monday, President Obama tacitly acknowledged that his signature legislative achievement won't meet its stated goal.

During a rant against Republican intransigence, Obama said that he could tackle the deficit tomorrow if his opponents would agree to raise taxes and "were willing to take on some of the long-term costs that we have on health care."

Sound familiar?

Back in February 2009, days after signing an economic stimulus package then valued at $787 billion, Obama convened a Fiscal Responsibility Summit at the White House.

At the time, the event was advertised as Obama's "pivot" to tackling the nation's debt burden, but it was really the opening pitch for imposing national health care on America.

"Health care reform is entitlement reform," said Peter Orszag, then Obama's budget director. "The path to fiscal responsibility must run directly through health care."

Obama amplified this message in his own remarks, calling rising health care costs "the single, most pressing fiscal challenge we face, by far." He added that in the 2008 election, Americans had rejected the "casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks."

It's undeniable that health care inflation -- which helps drive the ballooning cost of Medicare and Medicaid -- is the most significant fiscal challenge we face. The problem is, the health care plan that Obama rammed through Congress ended up making our problems worse, as it relied on the very type of accounting tricks he decried.

...

It is the Democrat politics of fraud all over again. Those of us who opposed the health care law suspected that it would make matters worse and those suspicions are being proved with events and admissions by Obama. Don't worry. He will go into denial on the same subject during the 2012 campaign as he attempts to defend his disastrous record as President along with his health care monstrosity.