Really, Mr. President?

From yesterday's interview of President Obama by Bill O'Reilly:

CLAIM: “I lowered taxes over the last two years.”

FACT: The health care law includes a whopping $569,200,000,000 in tax increases scheduled to take effect over the coming years – taxes that will harm an economy struggling to grow. Most of these taxes will be paid by, or passed through to, the middle-class – including a new 40 percent tax on insurance policies the government is forcing individuals to buy, a tax so unpopular Democrats refused to impose it before 2018, well after President Obama will leave office.

CLAIM: “We want cost controls in health care.”

FACT: According to the Medicare actuary, the health care law will INCREASE costs by $310,800,000,000. In June 2009, President Obama claimed that any health care legislation must control costs: “If any bill arrives from Congress that is not controlling costs, that’s not a bill I can support. It’s going to have to control costs.” But just last month, the Medicare actuary once again confirmed that the President’s promise is “false, more so than true.”

CLAIM: “What we said was, if you have health care that you like, you keep it.”

FACT: According to the Administration’s own estimates, half of all employers – and as many as 80% of small businesses – will be forced to give up their current coverage within the next two years, thus subjecting them to costly new mandates that will increase premiums. Last month, the Medicare actuary agreed with the Administration’s own estimates that the President’s promise is “not true in all cases.”

CLAIM: [Responding to O’Reilly’s claim that the bill was “a huge government intrusion” that will “take over, basically, decision making for Americans”] “But, Bill….you have a responsibility to make sure that you have got coverage.”

FACT: The law goes much further than its constitutionally dubious requirement to obtain coverage – it forces individuals to buy, and large employers to offer, government-defined insurance coverage or pay financial penalties, meaning federal bureaucrats will be defining the parameters under which all Americans will obtain health care. Moreover, the law itself creates 159 new bureaucracies and programs, stretching the federal government’s involvement into virtually every nook and cranny of the health care sector.

(Above taken from an email by Chris Jacobs, Health Policy Analyst, Republican Policy Committee)

And there's more:

O'REILLY: Do you deny that you are a man who wants to redistribute wealth.

OBAMA: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: You deny that?

OBAMA: Absolutely.