On the recordJanuary 12, 2010
We heard the President--now the President--say back in a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2008, ``That's what I will do in bringing all the 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.'' We know in the debate, when he was running against John McCain, our now-President said, ``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's making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who's making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.'' We heard the Speaker say repeatedly that when she was Speaker, this would be the most open government ever. So it's deeply perplexing, since we know they would never lie, why they're preventing what they promised from coming true.
