So Much For Watching Obama's Secret, Backroom Health-Care Deals on CSPAN [Greg Pollowitz]
Not only are President Obama's meetings with health-care executives not televised as he promised during the campaign, he won't even let the names of whom he's meeting with out to the public. The Los Angeles Times:
White House declines to disclose visits by health industry executives
Citing an argument used by the Bush administration, the Secret Service rejects a request from a watchdog group to list those who have visited the White House to discuss the healthcare overhaul.
And the promise:
As a candidate, President Obama vowed that in devising a healthcare bill he would invite in TV cameras — specifically C-SPAN — so that Americans could have a window into negotiations that normally play out behind closed doors.
Having promised transparency, the administration should be willing to disclose who it is consulting in shaping healthcare policy, said an attorney for the citizens' group. In its letter requesting the records, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics asked about visits from Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans; William Weldon, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson; and J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Assn., among others.
"It's extremely disappointing," said Anne Weismann, the group's chief counsel. Obama is relying on a legal argument that "continues one of the bad, anti-transparency, pro-secrecy approaches that the Bush administration had taken. And it seems completely at odds with the president's commitment . . . to bring a new level of transparency to his government."
Just words, I guess.
07/22 12:35 PM
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