President Obama will use his bully pulpit in order to get health care reform done
By John Amato Sunday Jun 07, 2009 2:00pmPresident Obama has been reading out blogs and now says he will use his bully pulpit to push Congress on health care reform.
The NY Times: Obama to Forge a Greater Role on Health Care
After months of insisting he would leave the details to Congress, President Obama has concluded that he must exert greater control over the health care debate and is preparing an intense push for legislation that will include speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers, senior White House officials say.
Mindful of the failures of former President Bill Clinton, whose intricate proposal for universal care collapsed on Capitol Hill 15 years ago, Mr. Obama until now had charted a different course, setting forth broad principles and concentrating on bringing disparate factions — doctors, insurers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, labor unions — to the negotiating table.
But Mr. Obama has grown concerned that he is losing the debate over certain policy prescriptions he favors, like a government-run insurance plan to compete with the private sector, said one Democrat familiar with his thinking. With Congress beginning a burst of work on the measure, top advisers say, the president is determined to make certain the final bill bears his stamp. “Ultimately, as happened with the recovery act, it will become President Obama’s plan,” the White House budget director, Peter R. Orszag, said in an interview. “I think you will see that evolution occurring over the next few weeks. We will be weighing in more definitively, and you will see him out there.”
Newt Gingrich was whining about this article on Face the Nation this morning.
In April, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the Budget Committee chairman, balked at the idea of having the Senate consider health legislation under the fast-track process known as reconciliation, which could avoid a Republican filibuster. At a private meeting, Mr. Obama pressed him on it.
“ ‘I want to keep it on the table as an option,’ ” Mr. Conrad recalled the president saying. Not long after that, Mr. Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, visited Mr. Conrad on Capitol Hill. Mr. Conrad was not convinced, but decided not to stand in the way. “The Budget Committee chairman does not top the president of the United States,” he said.
“He’s doing good by staying out of it as much as he is,” Mr. Grassley said. “He’d better use kid gloves at the start.”
Why does Grassley need to be coddled and treated like a kid? What's wrong with these babies? This is not a bipartisan issue. Health care is an American issue. If Republicans want to get on the fast track of actually really helping American families and Corporations then they should get out of the way and work like Americans. Needing 51 votes seems like the right course of action. Republicans will block and obstruct any real change in health care and so will the Ben Nelson's on the left. By forcing reconciliation, it sends a real message to these un-American obstructionists.
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a SINGLE PAYER PLAN!
Give Americans what the rest of the civilized world already has!
Give Americans what
the rest ofthe civilized world already has!He reads the blogs?!
Read this:
SINGLE PAYER, take the profit motive out of health care.
GOP senator irked at Obama over heath care
sound idiotic. No wonder why it's such a hit with Republicans.
Anyway, I am disgusted that we have to hold the hands of Congressional Republicans meanwhile the poor and middle classes are one illness or catastrophe away from the poor house.
Shame on you crybaby Grassley!
keeps windbags from talking too much about why Club X is such a rad club or whatever. but it really prevents you from sounding intelligent and comprehensive about more complicated subjects. like, for example, the pros and cons of universal healthcare and the desires and hurdles of healthcare reform.
so you almost have to wonder if in a way Twitter is proactively preventing intelligent discussion? I have a twitter account. we definitely joke more about cat farts than have serious intellectual debate.
you just can't make an intelligent point about the challenges of healthcare reform, in 140 characters or less. not that Grassley is an intelligent guy, but .. I dunno. some devil's advocate shit I guess. =\
the web nerds who developed Twitter have made a lot of statements about how important it was to keep Twitter posts to 140 characters or less. and not just because the rule enables cooperation between phones and PC's. they have a vision of streamlining comments and discourse. to put it simply, they don't like lots of paragraphs.
found, via links at ThinkProgress COLBERT thread:
http://twitter.com/stephenathome
and look - great health care advice:
laurie garrett gave me a great tip to avoiding swine flu. make sure to rub my purell bottle with purell
perfect!
No meaningful health care reform will emerge from Washington until we can remove the controlling influence of campaign cash from the considerations of our legislators. Anything that survives the House and the Senate will be simply a means for the health care industries to more efficiently make money off of public funds, no matter what it is actually called.
We MUST have campaign finance reform, otherwise Congress will remain enslaved to wealthy donor interests, and "reforms" will simply be shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.
+1.
Grassley isn't known for thinking before speaking. He should do one of two things-...OOPS!
We may not be able to get Single Payer this first time around, but a genuine, full-fledged Public Option and drastic overhaul of Medicare Part D allowing the Govt. to negotiate pricing would be a good start.
Single payer now! No defeatist "next time" talk allowed. Now. Our country, our money, our rules, our demands respected and granted. Let the insurance companies go into another business. Like insuring Somali pirates, or Chinese CEO's.
No compromise. There will be no "next time." This is it, and a "public option" is not acceptable. It is more bullshit to be manipulated by the insurance company lobbyists. No! They had their chance and they took advantage of sick and dying people. Enough! That's the battle cry.
...it ain't gonna happen.
Obama is starting by compromising.... gave up on the only option that makes sense... "Medicare for all" aka single payer.
Now he's just negotiating with himself.
If the government is "competing" with private plans, the private plans will be supplying money to Congress to make sure that the government remains a really really bad competitor.
Health care reform that matters is already dead.
Now he's planning to organize his network of contributors and supporters to pressure Congress? To do what? Beg for a government alternative plan that will become a dumping ground for high cost cases, and be used to make the case in the future AGAINST single payer?
Plead for a public option plan that will be run by a bureaucracy that Congress will constrain (because of health insurance lobbying) from actually offering an alternative?
I'm having a hard time getting behind that. I don't want to be used. Maybe he can find enough people who don't get the game to generate some letters and emails. Good luck with that.
Check it out. Medicare Part D is one of the biggest jokes in history. Check that out , too. Google "Part D and donut hole."
major healthcare organizations will be the next to request a bailout. you can bank on it
Uh, John, there are no "Ben Nelson's on the left." Ben Nelson calls himself a Democrat, which is his right, but he most definitely isn't on the left. This is the kind of sloppy framing and phrasing that mischaracterizes individuals and issues and plays into the hands of the Wingers.
Of all the Senators, Ben Nelson is the only one that could legitimately be referred to as a DINO -- his voting record is such that he could switch parties and the Republicans could then reasonably call him a RINO. Nelson is near the center of a political spectrum whose center, in the last 20-30 years has moved far to the right of where it was before Reagan took office. Therefore, Nelson represents the left wing of the reactionary right or a right-leaning centrist (without being especially moderate), but he is most definitely not "on the left".
senator shelby(r) alabama said the people should be careful of what they wish for. the fearmongering is going to continue. you know the chant "socialized medicine", "you don't want government in between you and your
physician", "this is a move toward nationalized medicine". now there's some chatter of the timing being that there's currently a deep recession. GooGle ceo eric schmidt said on fox we can't wait. more time equates to more cost. we can't correct the fundamentals of business without reducing the cost and providing more healthCare coverage.
"you don't want government in between you and your
physician"
But there already is! For tens of millions there IS NO physician!
For the rest, there is the insurance industry, telling hospitals how to treat patients to maximize their own profits. Telling doctors what medicines and treatments they can prescribe. Telling patients what doctors they can see.
I'd prefer the government to insurance "providers".
i dont understand how that argument (gov between you and dr) got as far as it did...
not enough news stories about insurance PROFITS out there...
We The People are the government!
But the Republicans and their mass noise machine have made it into a Star Trek monster, formless and relentless.
What's the problem? Hardly anything is all bad. The US Postal Service is socialism. Libraries are Socialism. This knee jerk reaction that is expected every time some republican liar mentions the word must be called what it is: attempts to distort reality and manipulate people. Don't fall for it. Worse case scenario: Sweden is a very nice place. We could learn much from them.
...in most cases with socialism. It's actually much more appropriate in a democracy than capitalism is. The larger issue is the dumbing down that has taken place in our education system that has allowed the average American to believe that somehow socialism is evil and bad for us. In other words, the right has driven this debate since before Reagan and now it's time that Americans learn that socialism isn't bad and it is necessary in the case of health care. In this case, it would also improve our capitalist economy.
Go figure...
That $1.7 billion fine paying defrauder of millions? Who would listen to anything he says, besides Fox News? He wanted to be the McDonalds of health care. Why not just put a cardiac unit in each McDonalds? Yeah, let's let him drive the discussion.
US NOTHING BUT THE STATUS QUO...W/ A SHINY NEW NAME!
Does Obama want healthcare reform to go as badly as the economic "recovery" plan is going?
I pray that he doesn't cave to Big Pharma and Big Insurance as quickly as he caved to the Big Banks.
will be the biggest contribution to economic recovery. Business will no longer be forced to carry that burden.
when i found that headline/story:
maybe there's hope...
and it puts NYC date night and a weekend in paris in perspective:
"michele, i'm going to be very busy for a while" ...
To many people, a dollar isn't worth jack squat anymore, etc.
U.S. Population was 180 Million in 1960. 48 years later we have over 300 Million . . . complete the equation. (People wonder why they can't find work?)
...the spiraling world population is a massive issue that really isn't even being discussed, but you're right Evet, it is an issue.
Cheap labor publicans
SINGLE PAYER IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO!!!!!
PLEASE ALLOW US TO JOIN THE REST OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD IN RECOGNIZING THAT HEALTH CARE IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT, AND MUST NOT BE CONSIDERED A PROFIT MAKING COMMODITY ANY LONGER!
SAVE US FROM HAVING TO CHOOSE BETWEEN DEATH OR BANKRUPTCY WHEN SERIOUS ILLNESS STRIKES, AND THAT WILL ONLY HAPPEN WHEN THE PURE GREED OF INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE OUT OF THE EQUATION.
more headlines:
Democrats Weigh Health Mandate as Obama Urges Taxing Wealthy
Bloomberg - 1 hour ago
By Laura Litvan and Ryan Donmoyer June 7 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama wants Congress to consider taxing the wealthy instead of workers to pay for a health-care overhaul, as House Democrats discuss a plan to require health insurance for most ...
Health, climate change vie for boost in US Congress Reuters
SPIN METER: White House straddles health tax issue The Associated Press
CQPolitics.com - Ozarks First - Washington Times - Financial Times
all 137 news articles »
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&ned=us&...
The wealthy are going to impose higher taxes on themselves.
And how are people who have no work and prospects going to pay for "required health insurance"?
Stop the war. That's a start. Even I can find the money. Imagine how well the professionals could do if they put their minds to it.
I would have a massive coronary if I read or watched or heard an honest analysis of the health care (or anything) in America!
Maybe I was spoiled by the news available in my youth. Did you know that the Washington Post used to employee the best reporters in the world?
Ahhh, good times!
when the media actually cared about the news and printed both sides of the issue.
general public which by the endless assault of the Madison Avenue spin machine and MSM, has been reduced to a clueless automaton not far above the beasts of the field whose sole concern is the satisfaction of their appetites.
For not being a swan!
For far too long the mass media has substituted sound bites for substance. Argument for debate.
Schools that offer catsup as a vegetable and testing instead of teaching can't help but produce people lacking critical thinking skills.
We need a new system.
“If Republicans want to get on the fast track of actually really helping American families...”
They don't. They were on TV today in the local area, saying no public option to undercut private sector charges. One interesting thing I heard on the TV is that health care is 18% of GDP. Most sources list it as 16%. Missing, of course, from the story is the costs in Europe, Japan, and Canada, which last I heard was 11% of GDP and they cover everyone.
if that 5-7% were in the pockets of the population, how good that would be for the economy.
Since, in a lot of cases, health care costs are a part of doing business, increased productivity (decreased costs) would make our businesses, including exporting businesses, more competitive in this age of "free" trade.
The GOP is no better for the economy than they are for national defense. I can't think of a single issue where this current version of the GOP is right.
is that health CARE? or health INSURANCE? or combined?
i worry there is not enough distinction given to the two...
http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/51.html
Private expenditures of GDP
http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/50.html
Public expenditures of GDP
One finds the private and public expenditures and adds the two together. Of course, different nations have different GDPs, but it's a rough guide. This is not where the "18%" came from, I only heard that figure in a brief news story today.
President Clinton on Letterman last summer:
"Look at America. We spend 16% of our income on health care, none of our competitors in Europe and Japan spend more than 11, we leave 16% of our people without insurance, they cover everybody, so we don't have to spend any more money on health care, we have to reallocate what we're spending if we want to get the best results." Bill Clinton - Sept 22, 2008 - Letterman show.
The most shocking figure you can spread around is that last year, 1 out of every 700 dollars spent on healthcare in the US went to the bonus of one health insurance executive.
That just floored me when I heard a guest on TDS toss that number out.
Author : Resilience
The quote from the daily show
“A few years ago I think, the president of United Health Care made so much money that 1 in every 700 dollars that was spent in this country on health care went to pay him.”
You should remember that these characters have no more love for each other than they have for the rest of us.
Obama wants to bring doctors, insurers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies to the table to reform health care. In other news, farmers are bringing foxes, coyotes, and wolves to the table to design a better chicken coop.
they want they are buying off our polls.
Here is a list of elected people taking payoffs to cheat the American people and the amounts of bribes being taken. This is just from health care and insurance.
It is mind boggling to think how much these people are taking from others!
Arlen Specter (R-D- PA- $4,026,933)
Max Baucus (DLC- MT- $2,833,731)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $2,758,468)
And when you just go right to Big Insurance, the non-presidential candidates who got the biggest legalized bribes were the 7 senators who have been tasked with the job of killing single-payer:
Ben Nelson (DLC-NE- $1,196,799)
Max Baucus (DLC- MT- $1,184,113)
Joe Lieberman (DLC- CT- $1,036,302)
Arlen Specter (R-D- PA- $1,035,530)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY- $981,400)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $929,207)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA- $884,724)
We need to investigate and prosecute these criminals now. Severe jail terms are in order for these criminals!
I have sent this to my local newspapers.
Obama using his bully pulpit?
He needs to start slamming the heads of bluedogs and repukes into it.
Dr. Atul Gawande has given us a very revealing look inside America's health-care mess in the June 1 issue of The New Yorker: "The Cost Conundrum - What a Texas town can teach us about health care." Also online: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01...
...and done, what we will have is a system that differs little from what we now have, but ensures insurance company profits.
Medicare part D anyone?
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