Posted on 09/19/2009 2:42:23 PM PDT by Libloather
Dems find what Obama wants on healthcare still anything but clear
By Jared Allen - 09/19/09 02:39 PM ET
Democrats hope President Barack Obama will use his multiple Sunday show appearances to clarify his demands for healthcare reform.
The arrival of the Senate Finance Committee’s long-awaited healthcare bill only exacerbated the difference between Democrats who want a public option to compete with the private insurance industry and those who want to foster competition and savings through less intrusive means.
And both sides point to Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress to claim the president shares their opinion.
Now they’re watching the president for clarification. But lawmakers’ television sets may not be the best option for Obama. Some senior leadership aides say the president’s voice needs to be heard the loudest and clearest on Capitol Hill.
“The president’s work is far, far from done down here,” a Democratic leadership aide said.
And House leaders hinted they will remain in a holding pattern when it comes to combining their three healthcare bills until the White House clears the air.
“I do believe we’re at the point of the legislative process now, or we’re quickly going to arrive there, where the president of the United States is going to have to come down to Capitol Hill and say to individual members ‘Here’s why we need an element like a public option in the plan,’” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).
Part of the problem, Weiner said, is that instead of being a declarative statement, Obama’s speech was the equivalent of an inkblot test.
“You know, everyone had an opportunity to see in it a little of what they wanted,” Weiner said. “Only with true, muscular presidential leadership can we get people who have disparate views on this together under one tent.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) used the president’s address to claim his bill delivered just what Obama asked for.
“This is basically within the framework that President Obama outlined in his [Congressional] address,” Baucus said.
The Blue Dog Coalition – the 52-strong block of fiscally conservative House Democrats – quickly praised the Baucus bill. And they, too, cited Obama’s vision – twice – as their reason for supporting the Finance Chairman’s plan.
“The draft released by Chairman Baucus addresses two central goals of the Blue Dog Coalition and the Administration: It is deficit neutral, and it takes real steps to bring down the cost of health care over the long term,” said Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sadlin (D-S.D.), a leader of Blue Dog Coalition, in a statement. “Meeting these standards, also set forth by the president, is critical to reining in deficits and protecting our economy for future generations of Americans.”
But when liberal Democrats criticized Baucus’s bill, they argued it failed to live up Obama’s goals as they heard his speech to Congress.
“I don’t see it as the product that the president necessarily wants,” Progressive Caucus Co-Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said of the Baucus bill. “I think all indications are that a public option or something like it performs the function of accountability, competition, cost containment. And I don’t see that in this product.”
Even a week-and-a-half after Obama’s address – and after the president’s senior political advisor, David Alexrod, was dispatched to both the Senate and the House to clear up any misunderstandings – the president’s message was still muddled, and was still being monopolized by both sides.
After Baucus and the White House signaled their willingness to see the Finance bill amended, perhaps considerably, liberal Democrats began to feel as though their argument was winning out, and that a public option was therefore inevitable.
But that only prompted the Blue Dogs to remind Obama about his stated willingness to consider other options, including the co-ops at the heart of the Baucus bill.
"We appreciate your openness to alternative ideas on how to achieve more choice and competition in the insurance market," the Blue Dog leadership wrote Obama on Wednesday, the day the Baucus bill was unveiled. "Too much of the debate has focused on this single issue, and while an important issue to address, we cannot let our disagreements over it stand in the way of the larger goal of enacting healthcare reform."
If the rookie Hussein could gather the stones to appear on Fox News, I might watch.
His plan is to grab as much power as possible before the media finally turn on him.
Excluding Fox News, of course. He could probably be seen on Fox News by more than all the rest combined. But as Libloather (by the way, great name!) observed, he doesn't have the stones.
This REALLY pisses me off.
What -7nobama wants...
What the RATS want...
What the Blue Dogs want...
What David Alexrod wants...
And not one frigging reference to what WE want. We’ll have to pay for the damned thing and put up with the consequences. IMHO, the Town Halls this past summer have had zero affect. Might as well have stayed home.
Way past time to clean house.
Obama, as usual, is voting present. He just can’t make the hard decision nor can he make a decision that he fears will come back and bite him or be criticized. He just doesn’t have what it takes.
After some to the town halls, OB decided he had to step up, but the WH doesn't seem to have a detailed plan either.
The WH has to let the congress carry the bill. Any bill that does what the original house bill will do seems doomed. The key for us is to have the bill made public or posted in enough time to have the sumlight piped in. If the dems try to railroad, some repub will post the bill. That will defeat what they are trying to do.
PS: after the Christmas recess, look for amnesty for illegals to be dug up.
The American people would not stand for what Obama really wants - total control of our lives and fortunes. So, he builds a fairy tale around health care reform as the means to get what he wants and he can’t understand why people aren’t signing up for it. Simple reason, the more they hear about, the more they see through the lies and deceits. Tomorrow won’t be any different.
You hit the nail on the head! Obama cares not about our health care. He wants as much power as he can grab, in order to lower the standard of living in this country.
LOL.
Obama can't get his story straight for the Dems because he has to tell two different stories at the same time. He has to tell the Dems that he wants Government control of the healthcare system. That's their goal and they need to hear him say it's his as well. And of course it is. But he has to tell the American people just the opposite - he is not hard over on government control. He's pretty good but not good enough to pull off that trick. So he's stuck - a broken record that plays the same tune over and over and over expecting half his audience to believe it's rap and the other half to think is classical. Not going to happen.
The ONLY criteria is that a huge “kitty” is created....just like SS, Medicare, Medicaid....And you know how those are turning out....
He had no problem deciding to dump Poland Czeck Rep and Honduras on a dime.
Obama is also voting “present” on sending troops to Afghanistan. He just can’t make up his mind and he says he has to “study” it more. And the Generals are sitting on their hands waiting for BO to make some kind of decision. Gee I wish old Blood and Guts Patton was still around.
Circle jerk.
The Sunday shows are taped? I guess I would have known if I had ever watched one of them.
Those who think this is about “health care” just aren’t paying attention.
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