Obama Open to Partisan Vote on Health-Care Overhaul, Aides Say

[Cant trust em]

Source: Bloomberg

President Barack Obama may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress if Republican opposition doesn’t yield soon, two of the president’s top advisers said.

“Ultimately, this is not about a process, it’s about results,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior political strategist, said during an interview in his White House office. “If we’re going to get this thing done, obviously time is a-wasting.”

Both Axelrod and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said taking a partisan route to enacting major health-care legislation isn’t the president’s preferred choice. Yet in separate interviews, each man left that option open.

“We’d like to do it with the votes of members of both parties,” Axelrod said. “But the worst result would be to not get health-care reform done.”



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4.kYDWV9erc

---

If that's the way it is, then that's the way it is.

[bluestateguy]

1. This White House is a trial balloon field.

[bluestateguy]

2. But, but the newspaper editorial boards won't approve

Oh heavens to Betsey!

[drm604]

3. Check this out.

Emanuel, making a theoretical case for a party-line vote, offered a definition of bipartisanship based not on roll-call votes but on whether Democrats have accepted Republican ideas during the process of negotiations.

And he said Democrats already have passed that test, pointing to Republican amendments that the Democratic-controlled Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has adopted.

So we let them change it even though it's not necessary to do so to get it passed. We let them change it not because we need the votes - we don't and they won't vote for it anyway - no we let them change it because... because... uhh, can someone explain this to me? :shrug:

[Cant trust em]

5. One have to wonder what those ideas are.

I wonder if they're simple things that everyone can agree on, or if the republicans had to put up a serious fight to get even those included.

[babylonsister]

6. I'd have to know what amendments were adopted. But I want to

also remark on Emanuel. I thought he was the boogey-man? :shrug:

[No Elephants]

20. LOL. You can probably find them at Thomas.gov, but there are almost 200

of them, so have a pot of coffee handy.

As far as Emanuel, you point is not clear. Are you suggesting that his comments here are those of a pussycat? And.or, even if they are, that somehow trumps everything else said about him since his days with Bill Clinton?

Hell, even Obama joked that Rahm couldn't say "Mother" without adding the F word.

[Iowa]

7. Because the big money that owns the politicians calls the shots...

These phony "battles" we see between the two parties are nothing but theater. Hell, they hardly even try to hide it anymore. There is one big conservative party with two branches: the lunatic right (represented by the Republican branch) and the corporate conservatives (represented by the Democratic branch). Obama even views it this way - just one big party, all working together to further corporate interests.

If you examine it from that perspective, everything makes perfect sense.

[solstice]

18. So true.

[No Elephants]

21. I agree, but each part of that one Party still has a vested interest in being in power, so

you get the Republicans obstructing this bill, including by blocking their own amendments, while Democrats vote for the Republican amendments.


No limit to the kinds of crazy we have in D.C.

[No Elephants]

19. Obama just said something on TV about the number of Republican amendments. The number he gave

was either 200 or close to it.

And, I came across stories saying that Republicans were blocking Republican amendments to the bill.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/how-senate-republicans-obstruct-health-care

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/speaking_of_republican_amendme.html

In sum, no, I can't explain it to you.

Mystified here.

[denem]

4. K&R

[David Zephyr]

8. That's smart by Obama: If the GOP knows Americans will get healthcare, they'll want some credit, too

Believe me, when the jackasses in the GOP realize that all Americans will soon be getting healthcare and will know who gave it to them and who tried to keep it from them, the Republicans will get on board because they are chickenshit politicians.

Ram it through. 51 votes. Dare them. They will blink and join the parade. And fuck them if they don't.

[Cant trust em]

9. That's what I think.

If we get health care overhaul without them, history will see them as missing out on groundbreaking reform.

[David Zephyr]

10. Yep. Obama's statement is brilliant.

.

[No Elephants]

22. They fall back on "We want reform, but not unwise reform, like this." Then, they

get to have it both ways. The plan you never implement (or, in many cases, don't even describe) can escape all the specific criticisms people are bound to have of any plan that is actually put into operation. So, they seem wiser. Yet, they were for reform. After all, they said so.

[denem]

11. Dupe - please merge. Obama open to partisan vote on health care.

Source: Bloomberg

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress if Republican opposition doesn’t yield soon, two of the president’s top advisers said.

“Ultimately, this is not about a process, it’s about results,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior political strategist, said during an interview in his White House office. “If we’re going to get this thing done, obviously time is a-wasting.”

Both Axelrod and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said taking a partisan route to enacting major health-care legislation isn’t the president’s preferred choice. Yet in separate interviews, each man left that option open.

“We’d like to do it with the votes of members of both parties,” Axelrod said. “But the worst result would be to not get health-care reform done.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4.kYDWV9erc

[Xipe Totec]

12. About time! n/t

[cosmicone]

13. Dupe n/t

[myrna minx]

14. Damn--let the Repubs scramble and try to explain to their constituents that the health care system

isn't broken. :eyes: Let's get this done!

[bluestateguy]

15. But the newspaper editorial boards won't like that!

And what will the mother of an uninsured family say when they finally get health care?:

"Well, the health care is nice, but I really would have preferred for the bill to have been a bipartisan vote without the reconciliation process."

:rofl:

[Dr Fate]

16. Good to hear. n/t

n/t

[Juche]

17. So is this the obama strategy

Call for bipartisanship for a few months and after those months are over and almost no republicans are on board just push it through with democratic votes? That is what happened with the stimulus and to a lesser extent Ledbetter.

If it makes the GOP look like a bunch of obstructionists and 'forces' the dems to cram legislation down the GOPs throat then its not a bad strategy. Now the GOP looks bad and there is not as much political fallout against Obama for forcing a policy down the senate.

That assumes he uses reconciliation or forces a public option. I think having a public option is necessary to saving the $2 trillion in lower medical costs over the next decade that the commonwealth fund wrote about.

[No Elephants]

23. But meanwhile, the Republicans got almost 200 amendments into the bill. If you're

going to ram something past the Republicans, at least ram a Democratic bill past them. This way, Democrats will get the full blame for the bill, even though the Republicans watered it down. JMO

[prolesunited]

24. I hope so

The stimulus was watered down to get GOP votes and it's floundering.

I really think we have one chance to get this done right. If Obama fails on this, it's over.