In theory, the Obamacare enrollment period ended on Monday. In reality, anyone who claims to have attempted to signup at some point in time will be granted a two-week extension. That didn’t stop President Obama, however, from calling his lackeys (aka the media) to the Rose Garden on Tuesday to celebrate the success of his signature healthcare law. On radio this morning, Glenn just about lost it as he reacted to “one of the most agonizing speeches ever delivered.”
“Well, the President gave a speech yesterday – one of the most agonizing speeches ever delivered… I'm done with him,” Glenn said exasperatedly. “It is the press [who] decided, ‘We don't really need to say anything about this. Let's just go with the flow. He says it's 7 million [signups]. Let's just say it's 7 million.”
Glenn, Pat, and Stu ran through some of the more bizarre triumphs and blatant mistruths spewed by President Obama yesterday, as he basked in the glow of his so-called success.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: … And in these first six months, we’ve taken a big step forward. And just as importantly, this law is bringing greater security to Americans who already have coverage. Because of the Affordable Care Act, 100 million Americans have gained free preventive care, like mammograms and contraceptive care, under their existing plans. (Applause.)
“100 million? 100 million people have received condoms,” Glenn asked. “We're paying for people's condoms – 100 million people?”
“No, they're free,” Pat joked. “We're not paying for anything. It's free – free sex for 100 million people in this country… I guess we've got a condom tree that sprouts up and a birth control pill tree.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: … But the bottom line is this: Under this law, the share of Americans with insurance is up and the growth of health care costs is down, and that’s good for our middle class and that’s good for our fiscal future. (Applause.)
Forget the fact that President Obama once promised every American family would see a $2,500 savings under Obamacare. When you consider the figures Glenn outlined on radio yesterday from RAND and McInsey studies, previously uninsured Americans aren’t actually signing up for coverage at the volume the Administration had hoped for.
“Who believes this? In the press, who believes this? You report it as a fact. Who actually believes it? You weasels in the press: None of you believe this. All of you know this is not true. And yet you report it. How do you sleep at night?”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: …Now, that doesn’t mean that all the problems in health care have been solved forever. Premiums are still rising for families who have insurance, whether you get it through your employer or you buy it on your own -- that’s been true every year for decades. But, so far, those premiums have risen more slowly since the Affordable Care Act passed than at any time in the past 50 years.
“The promise was premiums would go down,” Pat said. “Not up slower but down $2,500.”
When you consider how deeply subsidized these new Obamacare plans are, there is nothing remotely impressive about the fact premiums have “risen more slowly.”
“That's not impressive. That's nothing to be acknowledged or praised,” Stu explained. “But the costs are going up. The premiums are going up. And who's paying them? If the government pays them or I pay them, the premiums are still the same.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: … But this law is doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s working. It’s helping people from coast to coast, all of which makes the lengths to which critics have gone to scare people or undermine the law, or try to repeal the law without offering any plausible alternative so hard to understand.
At this point, Glenn really couldn’t take it anymore. In fact, Glenn argued the only thing differentiating President Obama from a dictator is a balcony and military uniform.
“I'm not kidding you. You put him on a balcony in a military uniform, and this guy is a full-pledged dictator. There has never been any president who has ever done anything like this,” Glenn said. “The guy goes down and everybody knows the crowd is there to clap… In Soviet Union, everyone knew that was a game. It was a circus. And what are we doing? We're watching a circus happening in our own country and we all know it… This is completely bogus.”
PRESIDENT OBAMA: …Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance? Why are they so mad about the idea of folks having health insurance? Many of the tall tales that have been told about this law have been debunked. There are still no death panels. (Laughter.) Armageddon has not arrived. Instead, this law is helping millions of Americans, and in the coming years it will help millions more.
“We're told this guy is the adult in the room,” Stu said. “That is the most childish argument… There are people very closely tied to [this] Administration who advocated for things specifically called ‘death panels.’”
The straw that ultimately broke the camel’s back – for Glenn, anyway – came when President Obama claimed his Administration has not been on a multi-million dollar advertising blitz to promote the law. In fact, President Obama had the audacity to say they “didn’t make a hard sell.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: … And we didn’t make a hard sell. We didn’t have billions of dollars of commercials like some critics did. But what we said was, look for yourself, see if it’s good for your family. And a whole lot of people decided it was. So I want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make sure that we arrived at this point today.
“Would anyone like any factual backing for those claims,” Stu asked. “Obamacare outreach… will cost at least $684 million annually.”
Where does that $684 million figure come from, you might ask? None other than the uber conservative (sarcasm) Huffington Post. Section 4002 of the Affordable Care Act actually lays out the law’s PR budget. According to Townhall, in 2010 the promotion budget was $500 million, in 2011, $750 million, 2012, $1 billion, 2013, $1.25 billion, 2014, $1.5 billion and in 2015 and on, $2 billion!
“Oh, my gosh,” Glenn bemoaned. “Hey, mainstream media. Where are you?”
Ultimately, Glenn ended a very frustrating hour of radio with a plea to the American people. While he is “done preaching to the choir,” he is not “done being an American.” It is time to say enough is enough and replace the people who are running this country into the ground.
“Here's my current state of mind… I'm done with this government wasting my life… It has nothing to do with Barack Obama,” Glenn declared. “We have the worst people in our country running our country – on both sides of the aisle. And they're lying to us. They're sociopaths. And the media must be sociopathic as well because they have no conscience. They can report it as fact. And they can sleep at night.”
“I have things and stuff I'm supposed to do and it's not waste my life talking about these people. It's not. I can't take it… Have you decided that whatever it is you're supposed to do? Maybe it has nothing to do with politics. Have you decided: I'm going to do what I was born to do,” he continued. “All men were created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I have a right to pursue my happiness. I have a right to do what I was born to do – not what they tell me what to do. That's what that phrase means. Have you had enough? My state of mind is great because I've had enough.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP
