Who Should You Believe, The Spectator or the Actuary?

The American Spectator claims that the White House and Health and Human Services hid the true cost of Obamacare prior to the vote.

Medicare's Office of the Actuary denies the report was delayed. Some are attempting to parse the wording of his statement into a non-denial denial, but it seems rather straightforward on first read.

The American Spectator sources inside HHS—and they do appear to be multiple sources—indicate they and the White House has the report well in advance of the report, while the Actuary is claiming they didn't release the report until after the report.

We have a conflicting stories here, both claiming to come from insiders. Who to believe? My answer: both of them.

I think it is probably 100% accurate that the Actuary did not release the final and official report until after the vote.

I think it is also quite possible—actually, probable—that the Actuary was working on their report drafts with the draft versions of the Congressional legislation the entire time, and that HHS and the White House were privy to these late-stage report drafts and knew what the final report would say well in advance of the vote.

The question that a responsible news media needs to ask the Actuary is whether or not they were working on late-stage drafts of their report based upon the Democratic legislation in the weeks before the vote, and whether the White House, Congress and Health and Human Services were aware of those draft reports, and what kind of figures these drafts were suggesting.

The Medicare Actuary's denial in no way clears the Democrats in Congress and the Obama Administration, it merely suggests that they are practiced enough in their duplicity to not be caught red-handed.