Health care: Democrats go it alone
Will Obama give up on winning over Republicans and try passing reform without them?
Can Democrats pass health-care reform on their own?
(Corbis)
"It took a little while," said Alex Koppelman in Salon, "but the White House has apparently read all the available tea leaves and decided that it's not worth going after Republican votes on healthcare." (watch Democratic Rep. Barney Frank spar with a critic) According to a New York Times report, the Obama administration is preparing to go it alone, and focus on getting enough congressional support from other Democrats to get a health-care reform bill passed. "Still, this doesn't mean the end of negotiations over healthcare legislation, and it doesn't mean that passing a bill will be easy."
There's no reason it should be easy, said Jonah Goldberg in National Review. The opposition to ObamaCare isn't isolated to a handful of "Neanderthals" on the far right as the White House "and its cheerleaders in and out of the media would have you believe. The president's ideas for health-care reform have been "tanking in the polls" recently because they're unpopular with most Americans.
The Obama administration is hinting it's willing to make significant compromises, said Carl Leubsdorf in The Dallas Morning News, such as retreating on the "public option" -- a government-run insurance alternative to compete with private health insurance. So the debate seems to be entering its "end game." There is more negotiating ahead -- it will be tricky getting House Democrats to drop the public option, for example -- but in the end the Democrats must realize that, after promising health-care reform for so long, failing to deliver now would "be disastrous."
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10 Comments
Posted by JB, Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 6:22 pm It's about time! It's been obvious for awhile that the obstructionist Republican minority wasn't bargaining in good faith. Now it's time for the Democratic majority to do the right thing enact meaningful health care reform including the public option.
Posted by dj spellchecka, Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 8:43 pm jonah's full of crap...the numbers are dropping among the usual suspects.....people who didn't vote for obama to begin with...and their just lapping up the 'information' dishonest wingers like goldberg dish out...and as the debate on the public option picks up, the number of people who won't want a plan without it will spike too...
Posted by dj spellchecka, Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 10:06 pm jonah's full of crap part two....A WSJNBC poll shows a small drop from July to August on the issue of health care.Support for the broad sweep of what Obama has proposed went from 56 to 53 percent. Support for a public health care plan also dropped only three points, 46 to 43 percent. The percentage of people who said the Obama plan would result in better quality care rose, 21 to 24 percent, while the percent saying it would get worse rose from 39 to 40 percent. Obama's approval rating on health care was unchanged. mama boy fail!
Posted by Tyler, Thursday, August 20, 2009, 1:47 am If the government can do with health care what it has with social security and Native American Health care then I'm all for it!! Wake up and see what the real issue is...the government screws up just about everything they control and I didn't even mention what an awesome job they do of taking care of veterans...go VA!!
Posted by dd, Friday, August 21, 2009, 1:31 pm The major concern with uhc is allowing the goverment to run healthcare. The government cannot even run itself whether it is Reps or Dems in power. The other enterprises it runs i.e., AMTRAK, the Postal Service are failures. We constantly pay too much for too little. We may get uhc but as a collony of China who is funding a large part of our overspending government. The fact that Obama has guaranteed passage before the end of the year leads me to believe he doesn't care what's in the bill just wants a checkmark for passing it
Posted by Kam, Sunday, August 23, 2009, 1:12 am The dims going it alone is an excellent idea, maybe even a superior idea for a change! Let the dims, libs, progs opt into the govt cow medical program and take the docs, nurses, and other dim suckers who want it with them. The repubs and cons can opt out and maintain the medical care they want with the docs, nurses etc that wish to stay with them. This is definitely doable since the country already has a separate but failing VA medical system and a separate but also failing Native American medical system. The dims could share the same docs!
Posted by Kam, Sunday, August 23, 2009, 1:28 am But wait! The dims can't have their own system because they need money the repubs and cons earn by working. Someone has to pay for dim deadbeats who expect something for nothing for a living. The situation gets worse. Just read an article asserting the citizenry is now demanding and expecting the govt. to pay to bury them when they die. Let's see! Pay to birth or abort dim deadbeat's babies, pay to feed and clothe them, pay to keep them healthy, buy them houses and cars, and pay to bury them. Miss anything? Oh yeah, pay to jail them!
Posted by Kam, Sunday, August 23, 2009, 1:32 am Dimorats, liberals, and progressives are the gifts that keep on taking!!!
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