If President Obama were a commercial product instead of a politician, the Federal Trade Commission would right now be going after him for false advertising. Its case would be ironclad and we would get a ruling that would say cut it out, stop the swindle, be honest with the American people.
For one thing, the FTC would say, you had better quit talking about giving special interests a great, big kick in the behind. We’ve caught you, pal. You are instead playing a political version of kissy-face with one of the most obnoxious lobbies of them all, medical malpractice lawyers whose incessant, over-the-top suits may be running up health costs by $200 billion a year.
That’s a ton and is caused primarily by the unneeded tests and procedures undertaken by physicians so they won’t be ruined in court. The estimate comes not from hate-lawyer populists, but from such reputable groups as the American Medical Association, and answers come from a number of careful, responsible students of the issue.
They say you can save these billions while holding physicians responsible for true negligence by using expert boards.
Oh, wait . . . is that the president saying that he will agree to fund a study of alternatives to the present system as part of his never-say-die health care package? Yes it is, and that’s false advertising, too, because such experiments are always a dodge and we don’t need them. The thing has been studied to death. We need reform.
And while on the subject of the health care package, the FTC might add that it has caught the president in all kinds of deceptions — misleading statements about American longevity, an initial failure to keep the negotiating process as transparent as promised, a pretense that Medicare cuts won’t affect any benefits, the use of all kinds of gimmicks to hide the extraordinary new cost of subsidizing new millions covered by health insurance and the cry that Republicans were offering no options that could accomplish the objectives cheaply.
It’s not particularly our business, the FTC could continue, but that new health cost would put the republic in increased jeopardy because of being added to historic runaway spending. And what is our business, it might say, is your blaming of George W. Bush — he overspent but is a piker compared with you — and the various ways in which you say you will be fiscally responsible when you are planning no such thing.
What about this new pay-go law you wanted, sir? You got it, and the White House made it sound as if just about every new nickel Congress adds to the budget would now have to be paid for by a new tax or a nickel saved in cuts someplace else.
But the first time someone called for the law to be used, your vice president, Mr. Joe Biden himself, attacked the person as a moral thug. This is the way you practice fiscal responsibility?
Then there are all those broken campaign promises as calculated by PolitiFact: You would reduce earmarks, you would give time for comment before signing bills, you would have special restrictions for all ex-lobbyists hired by your administration, you would, well, it’s a long list.
But then, it’s not as if you are a toothpaste that claims cavity-prevention it cannot effect. You are president, one of the most important people in the lives of 300 million Americans, and there is no way but the voting booth to hold you and your party in Congress to standards as high as toothpaste. You are off the hook.
Until November.
