Can You Cover A Lie With An Expensive Public Relations Campaign?

Can you cover a lie with an expensive public relations campaign?  We are about to find out.  Today’s Washington Examiner posted an article about the Obama Administration’s efforts to sell the healthcare reform law to senior citizens as a good thing.  President Obama told a group of senior citizens in Maryland last week, “what you need to know is that the guaranteed Medicare benefits that you’ve earned will not change, regardless of whether you receive them through Medicare or Medicare Advantage.”  The Wall Street Journal pointed out that nothing in that statement is true.  Nevertheless, it has become the official position of the Obama Administration.  The problem is that the health care bill cuts Medicare by $500 billion over the next ten years.  The next ten years is the time when the amount of people who will be expecting to join Medicare rapidly increases as the baby boomers turn 65.  There is no way that you can cut the program by $500 billion, add millions of baby boomers, and provide the same coverage and service you are providing now.

According to the article:

“As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week in response to Obama’s Maryland statement, seniors have been told repeatedly by the White House and congressional Democrats “that if they liked their plan they could keep it.  Yet now we hear that millions of seniors will lose the Medicare Advantage benefits they have and like as a result of the Democrats’ health care bill…That’s been the story all along about this bill–a lot of promises that couldn’t be kept.  And that’s why the story now isn’t the bill itself, but the administration’s broken promises.”

The Obama Administration is planning a $125 million public relations campaign to sell Obamacare.  The money is coming from unions and liberal nonprofit organizations, and the co-chairman of the campaign is former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle. 

I guess we will see if an expensive public relations campaign can successfully sell a lie.