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

[TeamJordan23]

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

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.”

House Democrats today unveiled legislation totaling about $1 trillion that would expand health care to millions of Americans over the next decade by raising taxes on the wealthiest households. The Senate has yet to agree on a bill as Democratic lawmakers struggle to get Republican support.

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.

Continue reading: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4.kYDWV9erc#

[Parker CA]

1. This sounds good. Ax sounds like they mean business. Fingers crossed!!

[ThomCat]

2. Have you read the text of the bill yet?

It's shit. It's a give-away to the insurance industry.

The basic plan, the minimum, that they are claiming will make insurance affordable to everyone has an estimated $5000 price tag in co-pays and deductibles if you try to use it. That is ON TOP of the cost of the Premiums.

And this plan mandates that people buy this insurance or else.

So we would all be forced to shovel money into insurance that we can't afford to ever use. And the public option doesn't begin to phase in until 2013, and it will be priced comparatively with private insurance so that private insurance doesn't loose any business.

The new government agency being created to oversee all this new insurance bureaucracy is toothless a dozen different ways. They have no enforcement powers, and are directed by the bill to work with state agencies if they need to get anything done. The bill mandates that nothing in the bill can supersede any state laws, so it has to juggle 50 sets of local rules but be weaker than those rules.

It's a total mess. And this is what Obama wants to push through as his Signature achievement. :(

It's sad. Really sad. And it's only going to get worse in committee when the Senate gets to play with it too. So far this is just the house version.

Everything the lobbyists wanted is in here, and nothing we needed.

[Kdillard]

4. That sucks. I saw that the House released a version of it but they were

going to be working on it through August if I am not mistaken. I am hoping the House committees will clean it up before it goes to the Senate and they get a crack at it. In any case this is something we can get the change to criticize and hopefully push for it to eb better.

[Oregone]

10. You sure?

$5000? Thats aside from what is subsidized?

If so, once again, totally fucked.

[Mojambo]

3. Very good to know. Cause we ain't getting more than a handful of Republican votes. n/t

[Jennicut]

5. Finally.

Now its time to make the House version better. At the very least its a start- something that we have tried to do for years and years.

[SpartanDem]

6. K&R

[wroberts189]

7. First thing the Dems should do is to drop all republican amendments.

They already showed they are the party of no with the stimulus package.

They want to amend it then they should state they will vote for it and the amendments had better be constructive.

Dammit ..why do the Dem's act so weak with such huge majorities..?

[wroberts189]

8. "Obama is forced to face the fact that republicans are a bunch of donkey rear end fecal points." nt

[SeattleGirl]

9. Otherwise known as the fuck you Repukes vote.

Which I could get solidly behind!