#SOTU Factcheck: The President’s ObamaCare Rhetoric Doesn’t Match Reality
President Obama is sure doing his best tonight to gloss over his failed healthcare law.
As ObamaCare’s implementation proceeded throughout the last year, the American public finally saw what a disaster the law truly is.
Across the country, this law is raising premiums, cutting hours, and putting bureaucrats between patients and their doctors.
Two specific instances from the past year showcase the law’s failures on a broader scale though:
The first is the utter technical debacle that is the ObamaCare website. From the day of the launch, the site was a complete mess. Ignore the massive problems on the website’s back end, people simply couldn’t even access the site. It was plagued by “crashes” and “slow response times.” Even committed supporters of the president’s government takeover of healthcare couldn’t excuse it. We later learned that administration officials were warned of the site’s “glitches,” but dismissed the concerns.
It’s just one more example of the government getting into something where it doesn’t belong. Washington can’t run Washington—why should we expect it to build a massive website (and create a complex new healthcare bureaucracy)?
In the meantime, the website is apparently “fixed.” But not before wasting tens of millions in taxpayer money and countless “glitches” later.
The second instance is Democrats’ infamous ObamaCare promise: “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”
President Obama repeated the line at his 2010 State of the Union (and countless other times) and Democrats across the country followed suit.
This year, however, as the cancellation notices came rolling in, President Obama’s broken promise was laid bare for all to see.
Worst of all, the White House knew they couldn’t keep the promise. Yet they continued to say it anyway.
In December, the line was named PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year.”
The American people were sold a bill of goods. Now the truth is laid bare for all to see.
In 2014, Democrats are running on ObamaCare’s failures—even DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz admitted that. That’s why they’ll be held accountable for the broken promises and failed record of this government-centered approach to healthcare.
It wasn’t just President Obama who told the lie of the year. These are just some of the House Democrats that have repeated it to their constituents as well:
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01)
Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)
Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01)
Annie Kuster (NH-02)
Patrick Murphy (FL-18)
Scott Peters (CA-52)
Nick Rahall (WV-03)
John Tierney (MA-06)
Tim Bishop (NY-01)
