“If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.”
In 2013, Barack Obama was awarded PolitiFact’s “Lie of the Year” for making that claim during his ObamaCare sales pitch.
Notably, it wasn’t just the PolitiFact staff who considered that dishonor appropriate. In its reader poll of the ten finalists for “Lie of the Year,” a whopping 59% chose Obama’s claim, with the next option all the way down at just 8%.
Kamala Harris, however, didn’t bother attempting to conceal her preference to abolish private healthcare plans in favor of a wholesale government takeover.
Between now and November, Harris’s campaign staff will likely attempt to sanitize her position as she seeks to mask her radicalism. Inconveniently for her, she didn’t just say it once. She repeated her threat multiple times before multiple audiences.
To fully understand the gravity of Harris’s proposal, keep in mind that a supermajority 71% of Americans rated their private coverage as “good” or “excellent” when Harris proposed a government takeover as a 2020 presidential candidate.
In the years since, that satisfaction level has only increased, with a resounding 89% of Americans reporting that they’d rather receive health insurance through an employer than from the government.
Kamala, however, doesn’t really care what Americans want.
In a January 28, 2019 interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Harris was asked about her co-sponsorship of the “Medicare for All” legislation alongside Senator Bernie Sanders that would eliminate private insurance. Tapper asked, “So for people out there who like their insurance, they don’t get to keep it?” Harris replied, “Let’s eliminate all of that. Let’s move on.”
For good measure, Harris suggested during another interview with Tapper on May 12, 2019 that she would extend that coverage to illegal aliens.
During a Democratic primary debate on June 27, 2019, Harris reiterated her position. NBC moderator Lester Holt asked, “Who here would abolish private insurance in favor of a government-run plan?” Out of ten primary candidates on stage, only Harris and Sanders raised their hands. To put that in its proper extremist perspective, consider that the lineup included the likes of Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, Kirsten Gillibrand and even Eric Swalwell.
Harris later tried to claim that she “misunderstood the question,” which even if true raises new concerns about her ability to fathom and respond to simple questions on basic policy points. Moreover, if she “misunderstood the question,” why did she repeat her position in unequivocal terms multiple times in response to direct questions?
Today, Harris and her team refuse to answer press questions and attempt to walk back all of her outlandish and extremist policy positions as she sells herself to the American electorate as some sort of moderate. For instance, she openly and unequivocally advocated a ban on fracking, arguably the most impactful and beneficial innovation of the current century. Now that her position may hurt her in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania, she vaguely claims that she no longer holds that position, although she conspicuously refrains from answering press questions or specifying what her new position actually is.
There’s an additional problem for Harris. If she truly no longer holds those positions, can she identify a single concrete step she’s taken over the past four years as Biden’s second-in-command to advance those “evolving” views she now claims to possess? Has she renounced her opposition to fracking and advocated freeing our energy sector rather than restricting it? And on the issue of healthcare, can she identify a single moment in which she advocated more market-oriented solutions rather than government aggrandizement? A single time that she’s attempted to dissuade Biden from violating intellectual property rights or more socialization of our healthcare system in the form of price controls?
After all, Joe Biden said that Kamala would be “the last person in the room” when he made major decisions, such as their meeting to plan the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The simple truth is that Harris remains every bit the socialized medicine advocate she was in 2019 when she confirmed time after time that she seeks to end private healthcare plans in America.
Americans who overwhelmingly prefer private health insurance can be forgiven for believing Obama’s false promise that subsequently earned him 2013’s “Lie of the Year.” With Harris openly stating her desire to abolish it, they’ll have no one but themselves to blame if they invite it and don’t like the consequences.
Timothy H. Lee is Senior Vice President of legal and public affairs at the Center for Individual Freedom.
Reprinted with Permission from CFIF.org – By Timothy H. Lee
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
We have been talking about repealing and replacing Obamacare since 2016. All talk and no action. It is a dead issue.
As for Harris and “Medicare for All”, that is just as dead. There is not nearly enough support in Congress (and not nearly enough money in the budget) to pass “Medicare for All”.
To top it off, Communist harris wants to Tax everybody’s Income at 80%. NO BS.
Excellent article. Welcome to Communism Healthcare brought to you by democrats in the name of Obamacare.
People in the middle, Moderates need to wake up as well single individuals Obamacare is restrictive or their government healthcare. Is restrictive and has no real choices outside of it not like private healthcare which you can manage through different choices and what amount of coverage you want or need. Kamala Harris would want to single payer which would be the same for everybody . if you have a special-needs it wouldn’t be covered . the illegals would get covered which would destroy our whole medical system we would be like Venezuela is right now and It just get worse and people would die we don’t need this.
Now where did I hear that before? Hmmm oh yes from the democrats, which was a pot full of ????
apparently I missed hell freezing over because I’m about to say something nice about Kamala Harris: At least she’s honest about whether we will be allowed to keep our health insurance under her socialized medicine plan. UNLIKE BARACK OBAMA, who lied through his teeth.
If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. How long am I supposed to keep believing the lies?