Blog Entry #8 Actually, We Can’t Keep It

It seems that President Obama cannot escape controversy in regards to his new health care plan. This time around, heads have spun because of his most recent fallacy. Obama said, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan”. An NBC nightly news report discovered that one woman’s insurance agency was not able to offer her current policy anymore due to the new law. The Obama administration admitted that they would not be surprised if millions [of Americans] would have to lose or change their individual policies.

"If you have it, you can keep it"

The New York Times has produced a super cut to make jabs at the president. They took all of the times in which the president has made this claim and formed them into one clip. Obama promises us [the American people] 23 times, in different words, that we can keep our current plans. This cut can be found here.

There are millions of cases in the United States in which people either need to change their health insurance plan, or will lose their current health insurance plan. Through the eyes of these millions of people, Obama is lying outright: They have a plan, but they cannot keep it.

Is Obama to blame?

On one hand, the truth is that he did lie to the American people about the Affordable Health Care Act in the way that he phrased “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”

On the other hand, the nature of the Affordable Health Care Act guarantees health insurance coverage for all United States citizens, and in most cases, people can keep their current plan. In most cases. However, it’s the fact that some people have to change their plan that makes Obama look like a liar.

The essence of this discussion frames Obama in a severely negative way, but it is the media’s fault for portraying Obama this way. It is the media that counted and published the number of times quoting Obama saying “if you have it, you can keep it.” The media frames Obama as intentionally lying when in reality, he is addressing the people who have plans that are acceptable, and don’t need to be altered.

We live in a society that looks at everything the President says in a critical way, a malicious mindset. That is why the Obama administration often denies releasing information, because of the way the media frames it. When no information is released, Obama is criticized for not being transparent or for scheming, but when information is released, every word is critically analyzed. He can’t win, and that’s the nature of the society we live in.