Posted on 09/02/2009 7:03:10 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
White House Adviser Says President Will Lay Out More Specifics On What He Wants In A Bill
WASHINGTON (CBS) ―
President Barack Obama will deliver a major address to Congress next Wednesday, confronting critics of his health care overhaul and trying to buck up supporters on an issue that has been slipping from his control under withering Republican-led attacks.
The speech will underscore an acceleration of Obama's direct involvement in proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system. Many allies have been urging him to be more specific about his plans and to take a greater role in the debate, and White House aides have signaled he will do that in the address to a joint session of lawmakers in the House chamber.
The speech's timing suggests that top Democrats have all but given up hope for a bipartisan breakthrough by Senate Finance Committee negotiators. The White House had given those six lawmakers until Sept. 15 to draft a plan, but next week's speech comes well ahead of that deadline.
It will come a day after lawmakers return from an August recess in which critics of Obama's health proposals dominated many public forums. Approval ratings for Obama, and for his health care proposals, dropped during August.
Senior adviser David Axelrod had said Tuesday that Obama was considering being "more prescriptive" about what he feels Congress must include in a health bill.
CNN reported Wednesday that the White House could be in talks with moderate Republicans, including Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, over the public option. On the table is a so-called "trigger" plan, in which the public option would only be enacted were insurance companies to fail to make necessary reforms.
Congress reconvenes next Tuesday after an August recess in which critics of Obama's health proposals dominated many public forums. Some Obama allies feel he gave too much leeway to Congress, where one bill has passed three House of Representatives committees, another has passed a Senate committee and a third has been bogged down in protracted negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee.
Axelrod indicated that Obama would not offer new proposals, but would be more specific about his top priorities.
"The ideas are all there on the table," Axelrod said. "Now we are in a new phase, and it's time to pull the strands of these together."
Obama has called for innovations such as a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurers, but he has not insisted on it. It was not clear Tuesday the degree to which he might press for various proposals in a new speech.
Obama also plans to meet with Democratic congressional leaders when lawmakers reconvene next week.
Axelrod condemned recent comments by two chief Senate Republican negotiators - Charles Grassley and Mike Enzi - who have sharply criticized key elements of Democrats' health care plans even as they insisted that a workable bipartisan plan was possible.
Their remarks, Axelrod said, "were not exactly consistent with good-faith negotiations."
In an August fundraising letter, Grassley asked people for "support in helping me defeat Obama-care." He said Democratic-drafted bills would be "a pathway to a government takeover of the health care system."
Enzi, in a radio address Saturday, said Democratic proposals would restrict medical choices and make the country's "finances sicker without saving you money."
The two men are part of a six-senator, bipartisan negotiating team that also includes Snowe.
Congress' August recess was brutal for Mr. Obama and his allies, as lawmakers faced raucous crowds denouncing Democrats' health proposals. When Congress comes back Tuesday, Democratic leaders hope to change the dynamic by holding quiet, closed-door sessions with nervous colleagues and arguing that far-reaching health care changes can be good politics as well as good policy.
They also hope Republican-led opposition has peaked. But that's far from clear, and Republicans are eager to hand Mr. Obama his first major defeat.
A new CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 53 percent of Americans disapproved of Obama's handling of health care, while 44 percent approved. In March, far more people had approved than disapproved.
Liberal groups have held hundreds of events in a bid to show that a robust overhaul is more popular than August's news reports would suggest.
The message lawmakers will hear when they return to Washington "will be very different than what they heard when August started," said Jacki Schechner of Health Care for America Now. One idea her group will stress, she said, is that the politically smart vote, even in toss-up districts, will support widespread changes meant to expand health insurance coverage and options.
Some Democrats say congressional leaders will have to trim more costs from the health bills even though it would antagonize liberals and make it harder to cover uninsured people, one of Mr. Obama's top goals.
"That's the kind of thing we're going to look at," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a member of the leadership who is tasked with getting his colleagues re-elected.
Republicans approach the coming legislative session feeling upbeat about the ground they gained during the August recess. Some are confident that no amount of closed-door hand-holding of nervous Democratic lawmakers will reverse the momentum.
"After a disastrous month at home, the fact that Democrats' new health care strategy is to hide in Washington from the people who elected them to get health care passed shows what bad shape they're in," said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for House Republican leader John Boehner.
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington D.C.?
He simply loves to hear himself chatter. His head is hollow. His promises are hollow. He is a failure.
I hope he discusses the 25 million++ illegal alien peasants that e and the U.S. Congress are trying to sneak into the American health care system at taxpayer expense.
I hope he expands upon his recently declared intention to get those 25 million++ illegal alien peasants on “a pathway to citizenship” through a 2010 push for Z visas, unvetted American identities, and **free health care** all courtesy of the American taxpayer.
>>> lawsuit abuse, which is a primary cause of high health care costs. <<<<<
And free health care to our 25 million++ illegal alien peasant parasites.
They make up 1/2 of “the uninsured.”
These people are full of sh*t. The entire thing need to be put in the crapper along with C&T along with the rest of their ideas.
Hey. We have done our part. I have been to the town hall and protested..written my Senator several times. I have talked to all my friends and family...OK Republicans..Now is the time for our elected Republicans to stand up and FIGHT! If they do not I am done.
Is it normal for a President to have a joint congress speech on a specific policy and just to call a joint session. Does a Senator or Rep. have to go?
Hopefully to announce his resignation........
THIS IS THE SOCIALIST HOSPITAL WORKERS UNION THUG LIAR , HUSSEIN BARAKAS POLITICAL DIRECTOR, THE GOEBBELS LIKE PROPAGANDIST WHO WRITES OBAMAS SPEECHES AND IS BEHIND THE SCENES PUSHING THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES MEDICAL INDUSTRY TO BENEFIT THE SEIU
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE SEIU IS RUNNING A PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN FROM THE WHITE HOUSE AND IT GOES UNREMARKED UPON BY CONSERVATIVE MEDIA?
Politicians and strategists praise Patrick Gaspard highly, although he stays away from the limelight.
"Patrick is the best political mind of his generation in New York and maybe the nation," says Kevin Sheekey, who as Michael Bloomberg's right-hand-man has frequently worked and battled with Gaspard.
"I wouldn't dispute that," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist and Gaspard's cohort on the campaign trail. When reminded that such a title could be bestowed on Axelrod himself, the strategist said he was "happy to cede that" to Gaspard.
The Washington Post, among others, has announced that a longtime labor operative of Barack Obama's, Patrick Gaspard, will be named Obama's White House political director.
Gaspard served as national political director for much of Obama's general election campaign and was named deputy director of personnel for the transition effort. Prior to his work with Obama, Gaspard was the lead political operative for the 1199 branch of the Service Employees International Union, a huge and hugely influential union representing health care workers in New York. He spent the 2004 general election as the national field director for America Coming Together.
Gaspard was featured prominently in Ryan Lizza's recent New Yorker piece detailing how Obama won. Of his job interview with the Illinois Senator, Gaspard recalled Obama saying: "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."
No it is not normal — other then the State of the Union it has been rare like the one after 9/11.
Guess the moron equates healthcare with 9/11.
Didn’t think I could detest the many any more, but today he has sunk to a new level with this and his propaganda to school children. The man is a danger to our way of life and get worse by the day!
Someone should start a pool on what Obama’s approval/disapproval numbers will look like after this speech.
When it's your Waterloo, I guess you pull out all the stops as you lose.
He is not a regular president. He is special. The ah.
Keep Talkin’, Obomba....Keep Talkin’.....what an idiot.
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