Posted on 02/23/2010 8:02:41 AM PST by raccoonradio
Sen. Scott Brown yesterday warned the Obama administration against using the “nuclear option” of ramming through Congress a revised $1 trillion health-care bill outlined yesterday by the White House.
The administration unveiled what’s already being called “Obamacare II” - a mix of already approved House and Senate health-care legislation aimed at expanding coverage for 31 million Americans.
Obama’s plan also includes caps on excessive insurance-premium increases, similar to measures Gov. Deval Patrick proposed two weeks ago in Massachusetts.
A spokesman for Brown, whose dramatic Senate victory last month halted Capitol Hill momentum for health-care reform, said Democrats better not try to use a reconciliation strategy to pass the bill with a simple Senate majority.
Brown vowed during his campaign that he would be the crucial “41st vote” to kill reform legislation under the Senate’s supermajority-vote rules.
“If the Democrats try to ram their health-care bill through Congress using reconciliation, they are sending a dangerous signal to the American people that they will stop at nothing to raise our taxes, increase premiums and slash Medicare,” said Brown spokesman Colin Reed in a statement. “Using the nuclear option damages the concept of representative leadership and represents more of the politics-as-usual that voters have repeatedly rejected.”
While Brown’s office didn’t specifically reject Obama’s latest bill, there was no doubt Brown views the proposal as similar to earlier health-care plans backed by Democrats, even though he reached across the aisle to support a major jobs bill yesterday.
The administration faces an uphill bid to win the bill’s passage in Congress, where many Democrats were scared away from backing reform after Brown’s victory.
A spokesman for the White House said the plan is an “opening bid” for a planned bipartisan summit on Thursday.
In a statement, Patrick, whose office dodged questions about whether Obama lifted the premium-cap idea from his Democratic ally in Massachusetts, praised the president’s legislation and vowed to work for health-care reform.
“President Obama clearly recognizes health-care expansion must include cost-control initiatives to help working families and businesses that are drowning in higher premiums,” said Patrick, who was in Washington yesterday.
Coakley would support all of those things & more. I still say “half a loaf is better than none” - it buys you time to work on getting the whole loaf. Sometimes “all or nothing” just gets you nothing.
Just more of the same.
He didn’t vote FOR the bill. He voted to have the bill come up for a vote!
So true, a RINO of the worst kind.
It makes Ben Nelson scared he will lose his job and he is back peddling in order to save it.
Can anyone update on whether he is still driving his red truck to and from Washington daily? Any bets on how long he trades in his pickup truck for a liberal luxocruiser?
I’m cautiously optimistic about your idea. At least, it gives me a little hope. There was a time that I would have said that would absolutely be the case, but it is really hard to call when you have these people in Congress.
Yesterday, he voted for a bill that is 0.5% of total budget
.... and today, he saves our collective butts by standing firm against the Govt takeover of healthcare.
Bravo to Sen Scott Brown.
Cut Sen. Scott Brown some slack as Mass could have picked Martha Coakley. I don’t like most RINOs, but he is the best any conservative could hope to get out of Mass and his election was the key to stopping ObamaCare 1. Obama, Pelosi and Reid are now shopping ObamaCare 1.02 and are likely to try the reconciliation trick. Brown has come out against this trick, so he is on the right side on this.
Screw Brown — I campaigned for him, contributed to his campaign, and voted for him
And the first thing he does when he hits DC — votes with the socialists.
Is that why Rush is taking him to the woodshed now?
Good points.
I would love to have a pure conservative as the Mass. Senator but the reality is that I would take a small jobs bill over the massive takeover of health care by the gov’t.
I'll take it, if it means no ObamaCare.
Look, we had a choice: A knife to the arm, or a gunshot to the temple.
We chose the knife.
he voted for a bill that will never get anywhere in the house. big deal. he listened to the voters who put him in office and did what they wanted him to do. my congresscritters sure don’t do that.
That is factually false. Upon his swearing in, Brown voted to filibuster numerous Obama nominees to the Dept of Labor, and the worst of the bunch had to withdraw their nominations b/c the votes weren’t there.
I also donated to the Brown campaign, and as long as he votes NO on BO-care, Pelosi-care, or Reid-care, I believe my investment was well spent.
Brown’s election has totally transformed the Democratic mindset in DC. Bear in mind that the leadership cannot admit this to their members, particularly in the House. This is another reason that Pelosi and Reid will not allow their members to go home b4 Easter.
Yes, Brown voted with Dims on this issue and yes, he will no doubt make future decisions I will not like but he is light years better than a Martha Coakley or any Kennedy.
“What does that make him?”
it makes him the D version of Scott Brown.
In fact, in a post I made before the election
I asked “Is Scott “41st vote” Brown merely our version
of Ben Nelson?” Just a question.
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