Obama's Health Care not Transparent as Promised

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said several times that he intended to negotiate health care reform publicly. In fact, he said, he'd televise the negotiations on C-SPAN, with all the parties sitting at a big table. That way, Americans would be more engaged in the process and insist on real change.

"That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process," Obama said at a debate in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008.

The special interests and lobbyists, he said, "will resist anything that we try to do. ... And the antidote to that is making sure that the American people understand what is at stake."

We missed this promise when we first made our database, but thanks to thorough reporting on it from the McClatchy News Service , we're adding it now. (Read their story .)

The McClatchy report showed that, so far, substantial negotiations on health reform have been held behind closed doors. These include two agreements with the drug industry and hospitals to reduce costs over the next 10 years. In Congress, some of the committee bill writing sessions have been open, but negotiations are also taking place behind closed doors. That's routine in Congress. Much of the difficult negotiations take place in private sessions, before bills come to committee or the House or Senate floor.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told the McClatchy reporters that Obama "has demonstrated more transparency than any president," but that "I don't think the president intimated that every decision putting together a health care bill would be on public TV."

Maybe not every decision, but he made it clear that he wanted negotiations, especially with those representing the for-profit health care industry, to take place in the open. We were able to find four additional instances where he made the same promise during public appearances in 2007 and 2008. And in one case, he said he'd do it in his first 100 days.

"People say, 'Well, you have this great health care plan, but how are you going to pass it? You know, it failed in '93,'" Obama said on Aug. 21, 2008, at a town hall in Chester, Va. "And what I've said is, 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." - Politifact Story