Healthcare Reform Won't Happen This Year: Top Democrat Clyburn

The Hill:

A prominent House Democrat said he doesn't expect a comprehensive healthcare reform bill to pass Congress in 2009, saying an incremental approach to covering the uninsured would be better "than to go out and just bite something you can't chew."

House Majority Whip James Clyburn's (D-S.C.) timeline on tackling healthcare is at odds with the timetable proposed by Senate Democrats and could represent a major shift in the House Democrats' strategy of dealing with the uninsured.

Read the whole story: The Hill

Comments

[Fabini]

Health care reform should NOT happen this year. It should happen this week.

[Jesster]

If not yesterday, then tomorrow at the latest. Our health care situation hurts employment and is often a major cause of forclosures and bankruptcies.

[jcwtts1]

I think O is going to push the legislation after Feb but the congress isn't going to authorize any more spending. The reality is that if you don't get things in the pipeline by the middle of March there is no way to get a complex bill through that calender year. The next year people are going to start running and after march everything basically shuts down. He has from March until March to pass it. If he doesn't year three is the best he can do.

j

[WorkingClass]

While Healthcare reform is something we desperately need... I, too, think this is something better left until next year...

I guess your not sick.

[KCFreedom]

Sorry folks, our health care plan money was spent on shiny new things to b l o w people up.

Great plan, GOP. Ran us into the ground so we can't get a health care plan.

[dagdavid]

Healthcare reform MUST happen this year. This is our ticket out of a depression. We must provide affordable healthcare and break the grip of insurers and pharmaceutical companies. REVOLUTION.

[jsarets]

We can't find enough petroleum-era roads and bridges to spend stimulus funds repairing, but heaven forbid we spend money on the number one cause of personal bankruptcy and the death of American manufacturing.

There's something special about healthcare that makes it different from other kinds of public infrastructure spending. It's okay to resort to public finance to defend our homeland, promote our culture, rescue our economy, and even save our souls. But to suggest that we use public finance to manage our health is perceived as an indictment of private capital.

Maybe, if the Democrats carefully manage expectations, they can keep universal healthcare alive as a campaign issue for many election cycles to come. It's worth more political capital as a promise than as an achievement. The midterm electorate is older than on the presidential years. They want to hear healthcare and social security, and the Democrats will make sure they hear it.

[BCubedReg]

Honestly, somebody here please tell me why the hell is this so hard to do??? There are plenty of state run Universal Healthcare models from which to draw upon. Have any of these congressmen and women heard of Canada, Europe???

WTF???

No truer words were ever said than by Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in the movie "Charlie Wilson's War"

Roberts: "Why is Congress saying one thing while doing nothing?"

Hanks: "Tradition mostly."

[Grunty1]

WIth all of the other problems on our plate and double digit unemployment from Dubya, now is probably not a good time to put an entire industry out of work.

[PATina]

While Healthcare reform is something we desperately need... I, too, think this is something better left until next year... although my reasons are different than Rep. Clyburnes. I think we need a single payer healthcare system (as opposed to President O's plan) ... and I think we'd have a better chance achieving it w/ a nationwide campaign better educating citizens and business on how a single payer health care system would work best for all parties involved (except for health insurance companies). Because of skyrocketing costs of treatment and medicines.­.. it's easy to see how this would benefit the individual­... but it will also benefit most business (large or small) by taking the cost of health care away (making them more profitable or at least more able to compete). It would also help doctor's and hospitals There was a group this past election season (and shortly after) that ran an ad campaign regarding health care reform... but I think more can be done (particularly on the grass roots level in more rural areas) to educate all Americans on a single payer system.

[mcantwell]

Frankly, with the economy in turmoil I was not expecting a Healthcare bill to be presented anytime soon. But I'm hopeful that Tom Daschle will be hard at work doing the necessary research to bring forth a workable plan.

[pupbayer]

I didn't expect it to. I don't expect to happen the next 4 years either.

[THE JEDI 69]

Honesty some times is bitter medicine..­.but atleast he aint lying to us

[KCFreedom]

Nor the next year, nor the next year...