From Politico:

Closed-door health care reform decried
By: Chris Frates
October 27, 2009

When Barack Obama was running for president, he vowed to lead the most open and transparent government in history. Candidate Obama even promised to negotiate health care reform live on television.

Then it came time to govern, and President Obama has negotiated major parts of the health care bill behind closed doors. Earlier this year, he announced deals his administration had cut with drug companies and hospitals after brokering them out of public view. And now his top lieutenants are working in secret with leading Democrats to craft the health care bill that will be debated on the Senate floor.

All of the insider wheeling and dealing has good-government groups disappointed in an administration that promised more openness than it has delivered. Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation expressed the watchdog community’s frustration when he said, bluntly, “This is a broken promise. We didn’t get anywhere near the level of transparency that we were promised.”

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