In his Saturday radio address the president continued his execution of a point by point plan for passing health care reform.
Pointing to the Olympics, he congratulated American medal winners and their ability to bring the nation together over the past two weeks.
Saying he realizes the difficulties in finding unity for the nation’s larger challenges, Obama said “we need to move past the bickering and the game-playing that holds us back and blocks progress for the American people.”
“If we want to compete on the world stage as well as we’ve competed in the world’s games, we need to find common ground,” he said.
“It’s time for us to come together. It is time for us to act. It is time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities to the American people and to future generations,” he said. “So let’s get this done.”
You know, it’s not insincere just because it’s strategic. He knows he won’t get any Republican votes, but he would be willing to make concessions for a few of them. But, the fact is, he doesn’t need to. The bill will be more popular if he takes away many of the concessions he’s already made in his vain effort to make the bill look bipartisan.
And if these compromises scare off the conservatives in the Dem party, what then? When folks like Mary Landrieu are open to reconciliation, we have a chance to pass something special.
I grant that the package meets a progressive goal in the least progressive way, but we’ve come this far. Get the package over the line and then start building on it.
well, I’d remind you that the House already passed a public option and is less inclined to vote for a bill without one.
And the Senate has 51 members who have already in one forum or another expressed their support for a public option.
So, what is the price we pay for passing the bill at 51 or 52 votes versus 57 or 59? I think the short-term downside is vastly outweighed by the benefit of not having to defend a policy of telling young, healthy people that they have to apply to the state for a stipend to pay for health care insurance they don’t feel like they need from a private insurance corporation they don’t trust.
Here’s how I see it:
A) a passed bill with no PO
or
B) a failed bill with PO.
I’m going with A.
At one time or another there were allegedly 50+ votes for a PO in the Senate. Nowadays, there aren’t. There’s 24 as evidenced by the Bennett letter signatories. That’s it. We don’t have the votes.
I want to press forward and finish the thing. I don’t want one piece to stop the entire project.
you can introduce it as an amendment, so that failure to pass it doesn’t derail reform.
Here’s Nate on the state of play:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/few-final-thoughts-on-ublicpay.html
He says 43, max. Hell, of the 30 signatories to a letter demanding a PO during the fall last year, not all of them are on Bennett’s letter. What does that tell you?
If it’s introduced as an amendment, then it will have its chance. But I don’t see it passing. I definitely don’t want it introduced as part of the base reconciliation package.
the only way it will be introduced in the base sidecar is if it has the votes. If it doesn’t have the votes, they’ll seek to avoid a vote on the issue. That’s my guess.
I ask for a public option but I’ll settle for a medicare buy-in. Give me neither and I’m going to be pretty dissatisfied.
I hope you’re wrong about them sidestepping a vote based on guesses about the outcome. There’s no excuse for not putting the “representatives of the American people” on the line. It would also be stunningly stupid politically. If the PO/Medicare provision comes to a vote and loses, Dems can point out that it failed because it couldn’t get any GOP votes, despite nearly all the Dems voting for it. If they just drop it, the universal belief will be that the Dems were just too scared of the insurancecos to cross them, that the whole dance was just a scam by pols who never wanted meaningful health care for America. When all faith in government is shattered, Republicans and teabagger idiots win.
Lose the vote, you have an argument that you need more and better Dems to complete reform. Avoid the vote and you announce that you’re as corrupt and useless as the Republicans. I can’t think of a time in the past half century when political fortunes hinged so definitively on a single procedural decision. Surely the Dems are not THIS stupid, not this besotted with the empty rhetoric of “bipartisanship”. Surely they don’t long THIS passionately for political suicide.
I agree Dave. If Dems do not allow a vote on a public option or medicare buy in, it will pop the support of their followers. It is put up or shut up time for everyone.
And when the vote fails, as I suspect it will, then the whole effort is shit? Sorry, I don’t buy that.
The Party has never been closer than it is today in getting HCR done. But because some folks want one piece more than anything else, they’re willing to risk it all for that piece. That’s really dumb, in my opinion.
Perhaps something he forgot to mention:
PATRIOT Act was renewed with no Civil Liberties added
He is not hesitating to sign it apparently.
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This new release, from various Defense components including the Army and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes in four parts, see here. Much of the reported improper activity consisted of intelligence gathering on so-called “U.S. Persons,” including citizens, permanent residents and U.S.-based organizations. Although Defense agencies are generally prohibited from collecting such information (except as part of foreign intelligence or counter-intelligence activity), it is apparent from the unredacted reports released to EFF that some DoD components have had chronic difficulty complying with that prohibition.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."This is very close. I am almost holding my breath that the basic bill passes and is signed into law. Get the framework into place first. Without that, it is doomed.
The bit about adding onto the bill for the vote now is sounding like the fairy tale about the fishwife who kept making demands until it was all taken away.
To be boring, when Social Security was passed, it was nowhere near as extensive as it is today.
With all the threats to eleminate it over the years, it is too entrenched to dismantle and remove. That’s what saves it.
This is about equality and the beginning of the end the vicious two class system.
It is being fought tooth and nail because if it passes and becomes law, things will never be the same again for the malicious haters.
I am on the mend from bronchial pnemonia, I must be feeling better to post this.
What you’re saying here would be brilliant if it hadn’t been painfully obvious since early 2009. Why on earth can’t Obama see this?