Obama hosts summit to rescue health bill

[TomCADem]

Source: Washington Post

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama launches a last-ditch bid to salvage his stalled healthcare overhaul on Thursday at a televised summit that could offer more potential for political theater than problem solving.

After months of heated battle over healthcare reform in the Congress, leaders in both parties held out little hope for compromise at a bipartisan meeting that will provide a national stage for the arguments fueling the long-running debate.

"I think it's nearly impossible to imagine a scenario under which we could reach an agreement" unless Democrats scrap the reform bills passed last year, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said.

Obama and his fellow Democrats have no intention of doing that, but Obama hopes to influence wavering Democratic lawmakers and voters who have lost enthusiasm for the effort to reshape the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022501613.html

[benld74]

1. GOP going to have a Truth Squad stationed Outside the meeting room, spinning the

NON bipartisanship on their side.

[FailureToCommunicate]

2. Durbin just said (on NPR) that Democrats WILL pass HCR without Repubs if they have to.

Oh, if only, if only.
But don't hold your breath.

[Doctor_J]

6. no they won't

we are a year into this. Threats are completely meaningless at this point.

[Mz Pip]

8. I tend to agree

and if they do it will be so watered down that it will be pretty much useless.

[dflprincess]

9. Anything they pass will have nothing to do with access to health care

and will only be about insurance "coverage".

[razorman]

10. With the November elections approaching, I don't think HCR will even have the votes

that it had originally. I think it will be abandoned by the so-called "blue dogs", and the handful of Republicans that voted for it some weeks ago.

[SandWalker1984]

3. Chains we can believe in??

If we still end up with a system that's based on private insurers that have no significant incentive to control their costs (i.e. profit) or the costs of pharmaceutical companies and medical providers, what is the point?

Without mechanism forcing private insurers to compete, we're going to end up with a national health care system that's controlled by a handful of very large corporations accountable neither to American voters nor to the market.

Forcing Americans to spent a trillion dollars they don't have on something they don't want (i.e. mandated private insurance), with the threat of FINES or IMPRISONMENT, without a job guarantee to pay for it, is not only insane -- it is totally un-American and fascism.

[Myrina]

4. I was listening to Prez O setting the agenda for the summit ...

... and it's basically all about 'how can we make (save?) the current system (for-profit insurance)' ... as opposed to 'does the present system suck and if so, what can we replace it with'?

Boo. :(

[Doctor_J]

5. Hopefully he will read this first

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1964778-2,00.html

and then tell them to piss up a rope.

[Uncle Joe]

7. If no one at the table supported Medicare for everyone whether all at once or phased in, then

this wouldn't be bi-partisan because a sizable percentage of the Democratic Party representing a majority of the American People's point of view were excluded, that's not bi-partisanship, that's bi-corporate partizanship.

Even this ridiculous one sided column by the ivory tower loving, bubble inhabited Washington Post only saw fit to list the opinion of a for profit "health" insurance peddling, blood money supporting Republican; Lamar Alexander, that's some balance you people have there!

Thanks for the thread, TomCADem.

[Earth_First]

11. How's the single-payer representation?

:shrug: