Obama Could Lose Health Care Fight -- Politico

[IrateCitizen]

How Obama could lose health fight
Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090619/pl_politico/23906

President Obama's campaign for health care reform by this fall, once considered highly likely to succeed, suddenly appears in real jeopardy.

Top White House advisers, especially Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, are still privately predicting massive changes to the health care system in 2009. But for the first time, Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the administration are expressing frank worries about stronger-than-expected opposition from moderate Democrats and worse-than-expected estimates for how much the plan could cost.

Business groups, which had embraced the idea of reform and have been meeting quietly with Democrats for months in an effort to shape the legislation, now talk of spending millions of dollars to oppose the latest proposals out of Capitol Hill. And Democrats themselves are not united, with leading party figures making contradictory declarations about how far they should go to overhaul the system when deficits are soaring and prospects for an economic recovery remain cloudy.

And top Democratic officials tell POLITICO they are increasingly pessimistic about getting any more Republican votes than they did on the stimulus package, with some aides referring to the idea of a bipartisan bill as "fools' gold" — an unattainable waste of time.

END OF EXCERPT, READ THE REST AT ABOVE LINK

My take -- if Obama loses this fight, he has nobody but himself to blame for taking single payer off the table without so much as a scoring by the CBO.

Democrats control the WH and Congress and still can't get health care done. This tells me that it isn't the Republicans who are the real problem here....

Flame away.

[rocktivity]

1. Consider the source

Stick with the "Don't call me Liz"-type stories, Politico--it's more your speed.

:boring:
rocktivity

[get the red out]

2. Sure, and Politico is doing it's part in the effort

It seems like the media is actively trying to promote the idea that health care reform can't be done. I am not shocked. Too many Democrats are in insurance pockets too.

[rocktivity]

3. I can think of only one reason for this sudden burst of MSM negativity about health care reform

Our activism and attention is working on Congress, and they're trying demoralize us.

These are the same kinds of people who insisted that Obama-McCain would be too close to call.

:bounce:
rocknation

[madrchsod]

4. obama bears responsibilty

he does`t understand there is no reason to deal with the republicans. this is`t the illinois senate where deals are cut. there`s no cutting a deal with the republicans in the senate.

his biggest problem is with in the democratic party and that`s a problem he`d better fix before the next election cycle.

[roseBudd]

7. In the Senate you have to deal with Republicans, they can stall forever

[OHdem10]

5. It will be better to lose than pass a BAD bill.

[roseBudd]

6. Read Milbank for a report on what they are doing in the Senate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061803600.html

The Senate health and labor committee has 388 amendments awaiting action as it takes up the bill this week. Yesterday morning, it managed to dispense with exactly five of them -- three approved, two defeated -- before the lawmakers, weary from their exertions, took a two-hour lunch break. At this rate, it will take the committee 37 more days to get through the bill, assuming members meet all day, five days a week, skipping their summer recess.

"I never suggested this was going to be at warp speed," Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), the acting chairman, said before recessing for lunch. Actually, Dodd is humming along compared with the other committee with responsibility for the bill, the finance panel, which postponed hearings until next month.

The pace does not seem to trouble the Republicans, who don't have the votes to block the legislation but do have the power to delay it. Of the 388 amendments, 364 have been proposed by Republicans.

The next amendment -- a plan to curtail medical malpractice lawsuits -- was doomed from the start, but Hatch went ahead with it anyway.

"It would be a colossal intrusion into the judicial arena," thundered Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Hatch knew he had no chance. "I know what's going on here," he said. "I wasn't born yesterday." Angrily, he complained that the Democrats' proposal "doesn't help health care one bit, it doesn't help people to be more healthy; all it does is pass on all kinds of stupid, dumb costs to all of us in society."

[Kceres]

8. I say we take to the streets like they're doing in Iran.

We simply cannot let health care reform get away.

[stubtoe]

9. This is going to be a tough fight indeed. May take several efforts and more time.

We're up against Big Insurance and Big Pharma, and it's a given they'll fight like wild dogs against any reform (via their reps in Congress, the Media, and various PACs).

[Stuckinthebush]

10. Follow the money

I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't see any real change in the future. There is too much money at stake and the people with the money own the lawmakers. There is no way in hell that the insurance agencies and the AMA will give in on public health care. They will lose so much money.

I'm just expecting to have the same crappy system in 2012 that we have now. Perhaps with some window dressing.

This country has to implode before we will see any real change in health care, energy or defense spending.