Barack Obama Campaign Promise No. 517:

Negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN

"I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. ... 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."

Barack Obama, Town hall meeting on Aug. 21, 2008, in Chester, Va.

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.

Obama promised — repeatedly — an end to closed-door negotiations and complete openness for the health care talks. But he hasn't delivered. Instead of open talks of C-SPAN, we've gotten more of the same — talks behind closed doors at the White House and Congress.

We might revisit this promise if there's a dramatic change, but we see nothing to indicate anything has changed. We rate this Promise Broken.



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