Health Care Reform Delayed: Congress Unlikely To Meet Obama's August Deadline

WASHINGTON — Top members of Congress say it's unlikely they will meet President Barack Obama's August deadline for a sweeping health care overhaul.

Lawmakers on Sunday said they will not rush on a health care overhaul that isn't even in final form yet.

The North Dakota senator in charge of the budget committee, Democrat Kent Conrad, says there's plenty of time for the overhaul while Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee says there's no rush.

Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan says Obama would be pleased with the progress toward overhaul, while budget committee ranking Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire says it's "highly unlikely" that legislation would reach Obama's desk before recess because bills are still being drafted.

The lawmakers appeared on CNN's "State of the Union."

Comments

[mikerobjohn]

Obama should have drafted the bill himself.

[sueinmn]

If no single payer in there, they might just as well file for their retirement and pick up their pink slips!

[mom792]

Amen

[twogunmojo]

if you support a public option for healthcare you should also support a private option for social security....

[socialtalker]

is that the crap bush suggestion that would have bankruptcy social security along with the rest of the economy?

[twogunmojo]

whats the rate of return on social security and medicare and medicaid now.....

[LeighAnnes]

There is no basis for that statement.

[Icantbelieveher]

They sit on the toilet and these things come to them!

[2garen]

yah sure you betcha, do you remember what happened in September of 2008 concerning Wall street crashing down? Banks going under? Now the question if you had a private social security system where is it to be invested that would protect it?
France, Sweden, Germany, England,Norway and many more have a public retirement insurance...
Gee they get something for their taxes. All we get is billions missing from two wars... Billions we have to bail out banks ...
I think they get a better deal.

[twogunmojo]

i would invest in the same things i am invested in now....and yes i did lose money this year but so did everyone else...but i am starting to make money again...what is that rate of return in the social security marker....

[Icantbelieveher]

Private option for social security? So that private companies can raid that as well, and siphon more money from the people? The private insurance industry has done its best to take as much money from people as they can -- and deny as many claims as they can in order to maximize their profits.

Privatizing social security would mean the end of social security, which is what republicans would love and are pushing for! There wouldn't be a social security, welfare program, medicare, medicaid, and unemployment if the repubicans hadn't messed up the economy and caused the depression in the first place.

Funny, the republicans make public assistance necessary and cause more people to need it, then complain when people have to use it!

[twogunmojo]

your president is raiding the social security fund as we speak...and i guess the same laws which prevent them from raiding my ira will prevent them from robbing my private social security....

[sueinmn]

WHY private? The risks of the casino investments with private phrofit seekers are to risky! Ive paid into SS for 37 years now and have no plans to see if go POOF, gone! regardless of Bush dippinb into it, they have a committment to keep!

[Chernynkaya]

This is good news, considering how underwhelming the health care "debate" has been going. As it stands now, the debate runs the gamut from A to B- no public option (no change) vs a puny, so-called public option that will AT BEST lower health care cost BY 1.5% OVER TEN YEARS.

So, while some say the delay will help the medical-industrial complex bribe more lawmakers and develop ads aimed at scaring the bejeezus out of the already ignorant masses, I say the delay will also help us get more people's voices heard that want REAL REFORM.

And about that debate: Let's start injecting the concept of health care reform as Part II of the stimulus in its cost savings and job creation, as well as the concept of access for everyone (which I feel has been hijacked by ONLY emphasizing cost.)

[socialtalker]

the corporate thugs are paying off the politicians to slow down the momentum it had, its time to regroup! or in my case get my ass in gear to campaign for it.

[Chernynkaya]

I also meant to say that the delay can give us more time to organize marches to get our voices heard- like Single Payer. And, this is sad but true, but during the delay more people who are smug in their safety of employer-subsidized insurance will be laid off and come to realize just how wonderful that "socialized medicine" looks now.

[naschkatze]

That's o.k. It's better to stand back and take a breather. The way this legislation was going was disastrous.

[mitsie]

Hey out there are there any good candidates thinking of a run on the Independant ticket? I think you can get alot of backing right now if you start campaigning for a public pay healthcare plan. Geez, they've known this is coming, it's too bad there is a blue dog Conrad in charge of the committee.

[jmpurser]

Agreed. Unfortunately politics in this country is intimately tied to money so even if they are good they are unlikely to be able to get enough money to compete.

[mom792]

Unfortunately, there will be on significant chance, either in heath care or in energy reform, until the is comprohensive campaign finance reform.
Just look at the background of Republicans on the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming: 2 from coal mining states, 2 from oil drilling states, 1 from Michigan, one neutral. Wanna guess who owns this committee? Fossil fuelville.

[betty22]

yeah!!!!!!!!......gives more time to read it over....

[BarackstarObama]

Reach his desk before the August recess? ... President Obama never said that, he just wants a bill from each house to be passed before the recess, so the two houses can work together in Sept. and have a finished product on his desk by Oct..

[DMHendrix]

Exactly!

[SangZe]

Health care reform is finished - as predicted.

[DMHendrix]

predicted by whom? You? Well, that just makes ALL the difference in the world.

[escribacat]

You wish.

[mitsie]

So you are all for your neighbors dying at home because the hospitals have closed their clinics for cancer patients with no insurance huh? Nice, really fn nice

[Ghostzapper]

Patience, we need to have some patience. Lots of Patience, people.

[tompoe]

If it's delayed, the Party of Corporate Welfare can tell their lobbyists to bring their commissions. The Democrats can tell their lobbyists to bring their commissions. Obama can tell the voters he's a fraud.

[edwarvir]

NEVER say NEVER!

[bigskydem]

Bill Moyers interviews retired health insurance insider Wendell Potter. Very interesting!

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/watch.html

Delaying the health care reform bill with a public option can be an opportunity for 40 Democrats in the House and 13 Senators to rake in more money from the health care for profit lobby. I hope that the media is getting enough of that money to convince 70% of Americans to accept the status quo.

Here's a positive: The insurance industry will spend enough money or write enough IOUs to spend their profits and jeopardize Wall Street approval from hedge fund managers.

[xargaw]

Moyers was great this weekend. Sadly, few Americans have the maturity or intellectual curiosity to sit and watch Moyers for an hour each week. They have had their brains hijacked by the infotainment news media that has spent a week repeating ad-nauseam on Michael Jackson. Dumbing us all down keeps questions demanding accountability to a minimum. The only way we are going to get health care is too DEMAND it from our Senators, many of which are on the take, both DEMs and GOP. Bachus, Conrad, Feinstein, Landreiu, Bayh, Lieberman, etc. We need to reframe this as an argument of Patriotism. To oppose a Public Option is unpatriotic. The private industry has worked against the American people for decades resulting in great harm. To allow them to continue without REAL competition is a crime and unamerican. Paint the opposing Senators as unAmerican obstructors on the take.

[Prakosh]

Hey who cares if it gets delayed. The longer the wait the more we will appreciate it. Isn't that an underlying claim that they always tell the working class when they wants something that they can't have. I'm glad it is going to be delayed. This gives the lobbyists more time to convince anyone who they can buy that there is really no reason in the world to change the current system this time. We can always change it when the Democrats have a bigger majority--maybe a super duper super majority of 75. Then we'll see health care reform, I promise. And it will be substantive reform, I promise, just give us the super duper super majority and we will deliver health care reform, I promise.

Or as Stevie Wonder (ironically one of Obama's earliest supporters) said in one his more pertinent, relevant, and lucid songs, "You Haven't Done Nothing" sings.

We are amazed but not amused
By all the things you say that you'll do
Though much concerned but not involved
With decisions that are made by you

But we are sick and tired of hearing your song
Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong
'Cause if you really want to hear our views
"You haven't done nothing"!

It's not too cool to be ridiculed
But you brought this upon yourself
The world is tired of pacifiers
We want the truth and nothing else...

"You Haven't Done Nothing"

[treetracker]

I don't know about the rest of you out there but I find it disturbing that one poll after another proves the America public want either 1) single payer or 2) a very STRONG public option.

Yet, here we are day after day fighting against the lobbying money who are paying 1.4 million or more per day to keep Congress from doing the will of the people.

If this is representative government, there is something VERY WRONG with this picture. I just got my DCCC 2009 priority issues survey form to complete. Part X is the comment section and once I fill it out, it's going to Tim Kaine.

I am totally fed up that we have to BEG our representatives to vote for a bill they know we want.

Are we back to taxation without representation?

[escribacat]

You're right. It's very disturbing. This issue has really revealed that we only have a pretend democracy. We may get to vote for representatives, but once they're in power, they're apparently for sale. All of 'em. It's just how things are done in Washington and we're just supposed to sit back and accept it.