Health Care Reform Bill Rests On Pelosi's Power Of Persuasion

New York Times:

WASHINGTON -- The future of President Obama's health care overhaul now rests largely with two blocs of swing Democrats in the House of Representatives -- abortion opponents and fiscal conservatives -- whose indecision signals the difficulties Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces in securing the votes necessary to pass the bill.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[FerrellGummitt]

11:25 AM on 03/05/2010

Okay, so when does Nancy release the Flying Monkeys?

[morganaM]

10:16 PM on 03/04/2010

Now be honest...Is this woman weird or what? Something not happening there. She has a certain something goin' on and it's creepy. Powerful lady and all, but there is just a look in her eyes...scary..
Those eyes paired with that certain signature smile and I get itchy...Maybe it is about the face lifts and maybe she never had a face lift..OMG!! What then??? Just imagine working for her? She walks in and looks at ya and goose bumbs!!!! However, she has to be clever to hold the position she has, let alone be placed there and by George!!! It was his revenge, I just know it!! Ahah!!!

[gbrum]

08:38 AM on 03/02/2010

If Nancy gets one more facelift she is going to have a goatee.

[mollyjackson]

08:01 AM on 03/02/2010

Nancy Pelosi, hubba, hubba! Hey baby, you must've been something before electricity. Seriously, the Speaker may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. She really is an idiot. Madame Speaker.... want to make twelve bucks the hard way? Pelosi says she's not partisan, but her constituents call her Madame Pelossilini.

[GoonieGooGoo]

09:31 PM on 03/01/2010

The woman who promised to “drain the swamp” run the most honest, ethical House in history seems to be remarkably uninterested and uninformed about Charlie Rangel’s ethics…uhhhh…issues.
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=XdnzSUytyt

And now you think the power of her persuasion will influence those dems missing in action or running as far away from this lady and administration as fast as possible?

Pelosi has also suffered temporary amnesia regarding ethics issues suffered by other members of her Team Left: Carolyn Kilpatrick, Bennie Thompson, Donald Payne, Donna Christensen, William Jefferson, Barney Frank, John Murtha, Maxine Waters, Sanford Bishop, Jesse Jackson Jr, Allan Mollohan, Pete Visclosky, Sanford Bishop and California’s corruptocrat sisters, Linda and Loretta Sanchez.

Nancy, honey, you can’t drain the swamp when you’re wallowing in it.

[mollyjackson]

08:19 AM on 03/02/2010

Charlie Rangel... still alive and still robbing the taxpayers blind.. What does that make, six decades of theft? Rangel's the only man with a rent-controlled mansion. He's the guy who writes our tax laws but forgot to pay taxes on $75 grand in rental income! So why isn't he the Treasury Secretary? Rangel runs more scams than a Nigerian Banker. Thanks Nancy.

[themainpoint]

08:09 PM on 03/01/2010

Shouldn't be too hard for Pelosi to convince anybody taking funds from health care interests.

Without a genuine public option and without eliminating the antitrust exemption and anti-competitive deals made with drug companies and the hospitals and the AMA, this bill is mostly just a perpetual bailout to the health care industry at the expense of average Americans.

Americans are overcharged more than twice the going rate for health care. That means average Americans pay thousands each year they should not have to pay and that the drug, insurance companies and hospitals never even earned. All so health care interests don't have to compete for a living like the rest of us.

That means we should all be paying HALF of what we do today.

Instead, our own reps in Congress are acting as extremists and allowing these overcharges to wipe out what's left of the middle class.

Any way you look at this, it's un-American and just flat out wrong.

[Kingfrog]

11:51 AM on 03/01/2010

Pelosi's power of persuasion.................Healthcare is toast!!

Blank sheet time.....

[mmonarch]

11:43 AM on 03/01/2010

"Persuasion"? Nice word for arm twisting and maybe a little extortion? Wonder what she has on some of them.

[LemonMeringue]

10:35 AM on 03/01/2010

Lose the mandates.

Bring back the public option.

It's why we worked hard to elect Democrats.

[Democrat in the South]

01:14 PM on 03/01/2010

There has to be a mandate if we do away with pre-exixting conditions.

[LemonMeringue]

10:29 AM on 03/01/2010

I have been proud and grateful for the backbone Speaker Pelosi has shown in working for us, for real health care reform.

I think she can do it. She is a woman of steel.

[jws2346]

09:57 AM on 03/01/2010

GIVE EM' HE DOUBLE L Mrs. Speaker Polosi

[wizzardly]

09:14 AM on 03/01/2010

I can't believe this woman. Basically she says vote for this bill regardless of what your constituents want. And if you are voted out so be it. This is arse backwards to our democracy.

[SangZe]

09:38 AM on 03/01/2010

What democracy? You mean the one run by Big Corporations?

[jws2346]

09:59 AM on 03/01/2010

Yeah, instead of vote NO or we'll cut your bribe.

[hatrickpenry]

09:12 AM on 03/01/2010

The votes that were muscled & purchased in '09 aren't there any more.
Remove it from life support and prepare for burial.
This video will become part of the National Archives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxMZ1WdINs&feature=player_embedded

[SangZe]

07:49 AM on 03/01/2010

Pelosi? Forget it. We are leaderless and lost.

[SteepleAston]

07:39 AM on 03/01/2010

Nancy Pelosi is a grandmother with a deep sense of the American people. The healthcare debate now is concluded, and the GOP has been "flushed out" so to speak. People can see the bitter and resentful obstructionism. From the beginning, this debate was not about the budget, it was not about patient rights, and it was not about health care. Instead it was about an initial GOP strategy "get President Obama on healthcare so we can sink his Presidency". This GOP strategy has done great damage, and almost succeeded, but now we shall see the toughness of the Presidency and of the Democrats who have a substantial majority. It is time to complete this important piece of legislation and not allow the GOP to further whittle away and weaken the bill.

As much as passage of health care reform can be a boost for the Democratic party, which has public opinion on its side, it also can serve as a stunning rebuke to the GOP and its obstructionist lackeys, for it should remind them in a big way that they lost the election and they lost because they defiled the United States and consequently had public support wither way as it should have done.

[Political Conservative]

08:59 AM on 03/01/2010

Public opinion on their side? Huh. This is the latest CNN poll:

Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform.

The Democrats are passing this for their agenda, not for the good of the American people. The Republicans are actually standing up for the people against the Democrats who don't care what the people want.

[wizzardly]

09:24 AM on 03/01/2010

It kinda feels like they are punishing us by voting for this bill when they know we don't want it.

[WoodyIV]

10:08 AM on 03/01/2010

How many of those polled really understand what the new reconciled bill contains? If you don't know, you cannot have an informed opinion. Thus enter the republican dis-information campaign. This bill is a good one, not perfect but it's a start. Any reasonable person can see this and knows there is always room for and time for improvement once it becomes law. This has been true for all important legislation from Sarbanes-Oxley to the Bush tax cuts, to the new GI bill under consideration.