This is the best spin they've got these days, apparently:
President Obama's spokesman said he doubts the White House will commemorate the second anniversary of Obamacare, explaining that the anniversary of Obama's signature legislation is only important to [people in Washington, DC]. "I have no scheduling announcements to make today about Friday for the President," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney answered when asked if Obama would mark the anniversary this Friday of signing the bill into law. "I don’t anticipate a presidential marking of an anniversary that only those who toil inside the Beltway focus on."
This confirms yesterday's report from The Hill, which stated that the administration plans to stay mum on the two-year anniversary of its supposed greatest accomplishment:
President Obama will not mark the two-year anniversary of his signing of the healthcare law — which takes place days before the Supreme Court offers a decision on the constitutionality of his signature legislative achievement. Senior administration officials said on Tuesday that Obama will not be offering a vigorous public defense of the law, holding events or even making public remarks in the lead-up to the Supreme Court case.
Let me see if I understand this properly. The spectacular achievement that reportedly makes Obama "prouder" than ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden is now so irrelevant to average Americans that he will not mark its second anniversary? Fascinating. I'm sure this decision has absolutely nothing to do with that facts that (a) every single public opinion poll demonstrating that Americans despise the law, want it repealed, hope the Supreme Court will toss out at least its central pillar, and (b) that it's a major political liability for Obama -- as it was for Congressional Democrats in 2010. Surely not.
UPDATE - As it happens, Republicans are talking about Obamacare, including freshman Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. Read the whole thing:
As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly claimed that his health-care plan would lower annual family health-insurance premiums by $2,500 before the end of his first term as president. But the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that the average family premium has increased $2,200 since the start of this administration. Then there is the higher cost to taxpayers. The CBO's initial estimate in March 2010 of ObamaCare's budget impact showed it saving money, reducing the federal deficit by $143 billion in the first 10 years. But that positive estimate was largely the product of gimmicks inserted into the bill by Democratic leaders to hide the law's true cost.
Sure enough, the administration last October announced it would not implement one of those gimmicks, a long-term care program called the Class Act, because it was financially unworkable. The loss of the premiums that would be collected to finance the Class Act wiped out $70 billion of the supposed deficit reduction projected by CBO. And last month the administration's proposed fiscal 2013 budget included $111 billion in additional spending for the premium subsidies in the health law's insurance exchanges—further eroding any confidence in the original ObamaCare projections.
UPDATE II - Check out this excellent briefing memo from the RNC outlining and documenting many of the same Obamacare broken promises that we've addressed here ("if you like your plan, you can keep it," lower premiums, lower national healthcare spending, no taxes on middle income families, etc). While you're at it, read this press release from Senate Republicans needling the White House over their silence. Be sure to click its embedded links.
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