A new strategy has developed from the Republicans which would allow them to stop being the party of no, and also at the same time allow them to pretend to be pro active on health insurance reform. In reality however, they are advancing this idea which will allow them to appear to be pro reform, while knowing that the Democrats will never agree with them on the basis of their reform proposals.
The Republicans first notion is that the Democrats simply discard the last year of the health reform battle, and instead begin bipartisan negoations to develop a more scaled back approach to health care reform. Translation? Lets do nothing!
The majore issues to the Democrat Senate bill is that firstly the Massachusetts Senate race went to the Republicans which effectively ended the Democrat super majority in the Senate and ended the filibuster free negotiations for the Democrats. Now, even though this has happened there is still a way to pass the Senate bill which would involve using special budget rules before passing it through the House, but the manuever has already run into serious issues, the most intimidating being a lack of inter party support.
Bascially the liberal House members want to strip out the Cadilac tax and add a Public Option (the right thing to do here in our opinion) while the Moderates are scared of losing their seats in the Mid Terms and ending up like Martha “I suck at Running for Office” Coakley.
The Republicans who are never shy about exploiting Democrat weakness have already begun the smear campaigns after being emboldened by the Massachusetts Senate outcome.
“We’ve seen all week Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid continuing to scheme and plot trying to find some way to get their big government takeover of health care enacted,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “Republicans are going to continue to be vigilant in exposing this.”
Even after Massachusetts, Boehner continued, “They are still trying to find a way to shove this down the throats of the American people.”
This kind of nonsense it typical of Republican ignorance and arrogance. Health care is bankrupting us both ethically and financially, and if something is not done premiums will keep rising as more and more people either lose health insurance entirely or end up with absurdly non comprehensive policies.
Scott Brown, the Republican Golden Boy was found urging the Democrats to be more vigilant in listening to his uninfomred party on health reform, because they are “upset by the backroom deals,” especially the CornHusker kickback which is a special Medicaid provision for Nebraska included in the Senate bill to win the support of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).
“Go back to the drawing board and do it in a transparent, bipartisan manner,” Brown asserted.
Easy for you to say Scott, you didn’t waste a year and millions of taxpayer dollars in producing this stricken legislation.
Guess Who Else Has Had Enough of Health Reform?
Senior White House adviser David Axelrod told the NBC show “Meet the Press” that Obama would continue to push for a health-care overhaul, as part of an effort to address root causes of the current economic crisis.
“The president is determined that we deal with the problems in front of us and health care is one of those problems,” Axelrod said. “The American people aren’t saying let’s walk away from health insurance reform.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, appearing on the CNN program “State of the Union,” refused to concede even that prospects for completing a bill had greatly dimmed. “We are still inside the five-yard line,” Gibbs said. “We’re one vote away in the House of Representatives from making…health care reform a reality.”
House and Senate leaders are aiming to determine by the end of the week whether passing the Senate bill is a viable option.
“We’re still looking at a way to do comprehensive legislation,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of House Democratic leadership, told Fox News. “Certainly, certain provisions have to be dropped out. The Nebraska deal and other portions of that — even Senator Nelson has said he doesn’t want that in the bill. So there are certainly changes that need to be made.”
Van Hollen added, “People were justifiably upset about certain things like that deal. But the goal is still to try to get comprehensive health care passed.”
