Obama Tells GOP: Nice Try on Health Care Records

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.

Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama's health insurance expansion.

Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee "would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking" and could "implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests," White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.

It's one more roadblock for Republicans who tapped into widespread anxiety about the scope and costs of the new health care law to regain control of the House in last fall's elections.

So far, they've been unable to repeal the landmark legislation they dismiss as "Obamacare." GOP efforts to deny administration agencies the money to carry out the law are running into unintended consequences, not to mention the sheer difficulty of tracking those dollars. Now it looks like oversight isn't going to be easy either.

"We are both concerned and disappointed by your response," the committee chairman, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., wrote back to Bauer. "The American public deserves the information we have requested. The secret meetings conducted by (White House officials) are a perfect example of why transparency in government is so important."

http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Heal ... ode=BDA9-1

Like I said in the other thread that was started with this same information:

LadyJazzer wrote:

President George W. Bush's administration beat back efforts to reveal the dealings between Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and industry. President Bill Clinton's administration successfully resisted demands for records of its failed push to remake the health care system, which was overseen by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Funny how the GOP didn't care about "transparency" when it was the secret meetings of the energy task force with Cheney...

I guess the ends justified the means.

But Cheney didn't promise transparancy like Obama has.

Oh well, then if the GOP doesn't promise it, then I guess it's okay to hide secret meetings to screw the American people on behalf of the corporations? Sorry...My bad.

That's about equivalent of saying Newt "sanctity-of-marriage" Gingrich didn't really mean his marriage vows to Wife-#1 and Wife-#2 because he had his fingers crossed behind his back? (Insert standard 'Clinton got a blow-job" line here: ___________________)

I guess "the Ends Justifies the Means"?

Amazing how Bush hijacks so many threads. Maybe he should have his own forum.

Well, since the Righties want to keep kvetching about how Obama does (or does not) do things, you have to have a reference point, don't you... God knows, you guys did it with Clinton for 8 years.

Deflectors on Maximum, Scotty!

So LJ wants to hold the Republicans to higher standards when it comes to morality issues because they claim they are the party of purity but let the Dems skate when they break their campaign promises on closing Gitmo, ending Afghanistan, posting new bills at least 3 days before votes, disclosing what was said in health care meetings, etc.

LadyJazzer wrote: Like I said in the other thread that was started with this same information:

LadyJazzer wrote:

President George W. Bush's administration beat back efforts to reveal the dealings between Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and industry. President Bill Clinton's administration successfully resisted demands for records of its failed push to remake the health care system, which was overseen by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Funny how the GOP didn't care about "transparency" when it was the secret meetings of the energy task force with Cheney...

I guess the ends justified the means.

I'm confused here LJ. You say it was wrong for Cheney's energy task force meetings but now that it is Obama and health care meetings it is OK? That doesn't seem like you, you are usually more consistent in your standards than that. I would expect you to be as upset about Obama's secret meetings as you were with Cheney's rather than an adherent to situational ethics based upon who held the secret meetings.

So I guess, then, that an acceptable remark when you post an outrage of the day regarding the next administration that holds secret meeting with which you disagree will be "Funny how the progressives didn't care about "transparency" when it was the secret meetings of Obama's health care takeover task force"? That seems to perpetuate the problem of "Ins" vs "Outs" rather than address the problem of our federal government holding secret meetings. We express outrage about Obama, you bring up Cheney, we counter with Clinton, you talk about Reagan, we mention Carter, you talk about Nixon, we remind you of LBJ - and all the while the problem of the Executive withholding information from Congress on the pretext of privilege and security continues. I'm not sure how that solves the problem. Perhaps the solution to the problem is for one group to hold their own to the same standards the seek the opposition held to. We can't do much about the Cheney situation, or the Clinton one, or the ones involving Reagan, Carter, Nixon, LBJ, Eisenhower, FDR or any other administration from our history, but we can get the standard set where it ought to be set in the present so that the improper standard isn't continued into the future, can't we?

SS109 wrote: So LJ wants to hold the Republicans to higher standards when it comes to morality issues because they claim they are the party of purity but let the Dems skate when they break their campaign promises on closing Gitmo, ending Afghanistan, posting new bills at least 3 days before votes, disclosing what was said in health care meetings, etc.

Remind me again where they promised to disclose what was said in healthcare meetings.

PrintSmith wrote: We can't do much about the Cheney situation, or the Clinton one, or the ones involving Reagan, Carter, Nixon, LBJ, Eisenhower, FDR or any other administration from our history, but we can get the standard set where it ought to be set in the present so that the improper standard isn't continued into the future, can't we?

Dang, it sure is good of you boys to want to "raise the standards" after Bush done already taken them down to the lowest level. rofllol