[Video below.] President Obama yesterday suggested that the health care reform legislation for which he’s pushing has been endorsed by the American Association of Retired Person.”We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors,” the president said.
At another point he said: “Well, first of all, another myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits. We are not. AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?”
The problem?
The AARP hasn’t endorsed any plan yet.
The country’s largest advocacy group for Americans over 50 issued a statement after the event saying, “While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”
Yesterday’s town hall meeting was quite tame compared to what Democratic members of Congress have been facing in recent weeks.
While hundreds of citizens outside the president’s Portsmouth, NH, town hall were very upset about his health care reform push – they carried signs, they chanted — inside, it was an altogether different scene.
The President said several times that he wanted to field questions from opponents with real concerns and questions about reform.
After a bunch of rather genial questions, the President said he wanted to call on “somebody here who has a concern about health care that has not been raised, or is skeptical and suspicious and wants to make sure that — because I don’t want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants in here.”
Perhaps the most provocative question came from a woman who brought up concerns about medical panels that would “guide care” according to the administration, the same panels that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin called Obama’s “death panels” which, she speculated, would determine who gets care and who doesn’t.
But halfway through her question, the woman, obviously flummoxed, paused. The president said something to the effect of “you’re doing fine.”
Then the woman turned to the crowd and said coyly, “He winked at me.”
And that was from one of the only “skeptics” in the room.
The White House said time and again that they weren’t pre-screening audience members. Most people got their tickets by registering with a White House lottery.
To watch a video of Obama saying that AARP has endorsed health care reform, click below:
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{ABC News Ventures/Elisha Ferber-Matzav.com Newscenter}
Why don’t you think of Obama as the boy who cried wolf?
So far he’s given us a stimulus package, which didn’t jumpstart the economy the way he promised, and has more pork in it than a pig farm,
Then his Cash for Clunkers ran out of money on the first week, and even when he added extra $ to the program, it still will not last as long as he had promised.
So far he’s messed up on 2 for 2, why should we trust him on this one? I’d love to go to one of those meetings and ask him how he could defend that!
He’s lost our credibility- even if he is a verrrry smooth talker!
I read somewhere that his health reform bill has 1,000 pages- does he himself even know what’s inside?
Another thing- he says we can buy our own private health insurance if we don’t want the gov’t one; the problem with that is that we’ll be paying 2x: Our tax dollars will fund the gov’t health care and then we should shell out more money to buy private? What would that help??
And one more thing- if he’s so afraid of Rush Limbaugh ruining his plan, yet he’s so confident that his plan is so terrific- why not debate Rush in front of the American people? I’d love to see that 🙂
let him debate rush…why not…he would never do it….he is afraid…