Why Is Barack Obama Writing GOP Talking Points?

[IndianaGreen]

Why Is Barack Obama Writing GOP Talking Points?

posted by John Nichols on 03/05/2010 @ 10:38am

If you want to know where conservatives in Congress get all their ridiculous talking points about how dysfunctional the federal government is, how incapable the public sector is when it comes to doing anything right and, above all, how worthless federal employees are, we've tracked down the source.

It's not Rush Limbaugh.

It's not Michael Steele.

It's Barack Obama.

The president, who was once an ardent advocate for repairing are broken health care system by developing a single-payer "Medicare for All" program, now rejects the wisdom he expressed before moving to Washington.

As recently as 2003, Obama told an AFL-CIO gathering in Illinois: "I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what (another speaker) is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out -- single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan."

Yet, after excluding single-payer advocates from his health care summit, the president explicitly rejected the option when he delivered a March 3 speech pressing for final action to enact some sort of health care reform.

Just as his speech dismissed "Party of No" Republicans who want to "loosen regulations on the insurance companies," Obama took a swipe at the real reformers with whom he once stood in solidarity.

"On one end of the spectrum, there are some who have suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with government-run health care," the president declared. "Though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/537639/why_is_barack_obama_writing_gop_talking_points

[denimgirly]

1. Money Talks.

[annabanana]

2. So..IG... I assume you pester Bayh daily to sign on the Bennet letter

(third on the list - and not running again. Why WOULDN'T he sign?)

http://whipcongress.com/

[IndianaGreen]

3. As all Hoosier DUers will attest to, Evan Bayh never listens to constituency

He sends the same form letter regardless of the points one made in petitioning his office.

[sandnsea]

4. Actually, that differentiates this bill from single payer

You know what single payer is, he knows what single payer is. Unfortunately the rest of the country doesn't know, doesn't want to know, or wants to conflate single payer with the current bill to create conflict. There's really no other way for him to clearly mark the difference except to mark the difference using the terminology that is already out there.

Have Michael Moore run for President and pass single payer, if it's so damn easy.

[polichick]

5. Really - it's as if the man had a brain transplant immediately after taking the oath of office. nt

[Go2Peace]

6. I have been saying this for a while. It hurts future efforts when we re-enforce Republican language