The fate of the potentially historic health care reform initiative hangs precariously by the figurative thread. Passage of a plan that conforms to the core elements of the House bill could legitimately be called a success insofar as it promises to extend insurance coverage to tens of millions using subsidies from the federal government to pay for it.
Let us have no illusions, though, as to how much of the existing non-system is actually going to be reformed. All of the structural features that have been the source of gross inefficiencies will remain in place, only slightly amended. Whatever modifications in care and treatment do occur will depend mainly on the goodwill of the interested parties with the barest of governmental oversight. If the House bill is amended by the Senate in ways that weaken either the public plan option or the provision for partial funding via a tax surcharge on the super rich, we will have failed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Primary responsibility for this disappointing outcome rests in the Oval Office. Obama's approach to the health reform effort has been feckless. He never laid down markers specific enough and firm enough to serve as strategic guideposts for the backers of reform. He made no concerted effort to marshal support nationwide for his plan; indeed, he never presented a plan.
He temporized about all crucial reform components, including the public option which just two weeks ago Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod publicly stated was expendable. He condemned at the same time ad campaigns directed at recalcitrant Democratic Senators. He invited into the White House every organization with a vested interest in perpetuating the status quo while continuing the high-minded rhetoric about keeping lobbyists from entering his administration's side door.
Finally, he seems totally ignorant of the elementary truth that for a president to get what he wants from Congress, he has to wade in, twist arms, jawbone, offer enticements, make threats, etc. A half-hearted facsimile of such a vigorous, savvy campaign at the eleventh hour is a futile gesture. That's why Lyndon Johnson succeeded on the civil rights front while John Kennedy failed. That at least is something Mr. Obama should know and take to heart.
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Ps. President Obama cannot do this alone, he need all of us who care about healthcare reform to take it to the resistant senators and congress
I am very disappoint
You said that he should draw a line. You think its that easy he can't even get all the democrats to sign on so I want to know what the heck kind of line you think can be drawn so that he can get enough votes and not have a watered down version of the bill.
Everyone has an opinion and frankly many are worth about two cents.
Where do you think Goldman Sachs stands on health care reform? Do they expect to profit from it? Or from killing it?
Where do you reckon the most obscene "profits" will come from? Universal health care? Or big insurance & big pharma?
What's good for Goldman Sachs is good for Goldman Sachs and screw the U.S.A.
If you need a doctor, go to the emergency room!
Of course they deliberate
In Europe there is a mature system that works, after decades of trial and error.
but a good talker makes people think the
cook is in charge
who is pulling the puppet strings of the smooth talking puppet
who sucks in the adulation of the masses and makes them submit to
a future of servitude and debt?
Obama has to proceeed more cautiously
NOT just the 50 million of us who DON'T have health-car
(No, Mr. President, giving that woman DENIED "health-ca
It is absolutely amazing that in his 4 years at Columbia, and 4 or more years at Harvard Law & pos-grad, that Obama has become so awed by the DC/NY financial system, that he can no longer see the woods for the trees.
Already, for past 15 weeks, Ed Schultz has been fighting this fight FAR harder than ANYONE in the Emanuel-ob
Mr. Obama BUYS IN TO the notion that the FIRST priority of America's health industry is TO PROVIDE PROFIT for the tycoons who dominate it.
That - along with the TWELVE TRILLION DOLLARS of TAXPAYER MONEY (actually MORE DEBT accrued to taxpayers) he (and Bush-Pauls
On all the other issues - economy, and process of law for example - these vital issues are not solved either but we are being slowly but surely lifted out of our comfortabl
Obama is intelligen
If this bill passes, it will be the death-knel
Disgusting