NBC News isn’t known for its hard-hitting journalism – especially when it comes to criticizing the Obama Administration – but during an interview with on Meet the Press yesterday, David Gregory took Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to task about Democrats’ lack of accountability.
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After a playing a clip of Rep. Pelosi circa June 2009 when she, like President Obama, promised the American people they could keep their plans, if they liked their plans, Gregory asked Rep. Pelosi a simple question: Are you accountable for saying something that turned out not to be correct.
Rep. Pelosi’s answer wasn’t quite so direct:
PELOSI: Well, it’s not that it’s not correct, it’s that if you want to keep it and … it’s important for the insurance company to say to people, this is what your plan does: It doesn’t prevent you from being discriminated against on the basis of preexisting conditions, lifetime limits, annual limits, and the rest.
For his part, Gregory once again probed the Congresswoman for a more direct answer:
GREGORY: There's a bottom line to this which I think people understands and the President has acknowledged, which is the government has decided there have to be minimum standards there are minimum requirements in any healthcare plan.
But, once again, Rep. Pelosi dodged the question:
PELOSI: If you had your plan before the enactment of the law in 2010, if you had your plan before, there is nothing in the law that says you have to — but again, we can go back and forth on this.
“Isn't it interesting a man who speaks French as well as David Gregory does [is] just starting to be outraged by this whole thing,” Glenn asked. “Because I believe you were mocking us when we brought this up. This was the plan from the very beginning. We told you this would happen because it would say ‘minimum standards’ and ‘maximum standards.’”
While there is plenty of outrage surrounding the cancelation of insurance policies, Glenn explained that an even bigger whammy is coming down the pike for people whose insurance has not yet been canceled.
“What you haven't heard about – because they haven't kicked in yet – is anybody who is getting a health insurance,” Glenn said. “I mean right now for everybody in Mercury, they get their health insurance. Everybody loves it. Well, we don't know if we're going to be able to afford it for the next year and the year after – definitely not. The fines haven't started in yet! So even if the insurance company doesn't raise our rates, which, fat chance, even if they don't do that, I'll get fined, what is it, like $7,500 per person or something like that because my insurance is too good.”
“That's the Cadillac tax you're talking about,” Stu clarified. “It's significant. I don't remember the exact number… On the Cadillac side of it, you look at someone who has too much. See Glenn, you give healthcare that's too good. Other people don't have healthcare this good, therefore, you should not be able to give it… Another way to soak the rich.”
“So what they do is they say because I have 300 employees that I give the best coverage out there – not that I can afford, but the best out there – because 300 people have that and others don't have that, they want to make sure that I am penalized,” Glenn explained. “And I pay for other people who I don't know, who don't work for me. I have to pay for somebody else's insurance. It is craziness.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP