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12-22-2009, 10:03 PM
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"When candidate Barack Obama was criss-crossing the country in his two-year presidential campaign, a standard part of his stump speech -- lines that always won him applause -- had to do with his promise to negotiate health care reform in public, on C-SPAN, for all to see. As the wrangling over health overhaul legislation heads into its final stretch, it's clear that was a promise President Obama did not keep. The dealmaking remained behind closed doors."
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12...aking-it-open/
Here's what Obama said in August 2008, at a town-hall meeting: "I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."
Why cannot people see what what is happening ?
From the same article !!!
"Obama's soft spot on this pledge is easy to find and Republicans have been beating up the president -- and Democrats -- for brokering the health bill in secret. That's a reason some Senate Republicans have tried to slow down the proceedings with a call for a clerk to read a 767-page amendment.
"Let's do what the President said last October a year ago,'' said Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), Obama's 2008 rival. "Let's all sit down together, Republicans and Democrats, with C-SPAN in the room and negotiate so that the American people can see what's going on here."
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