E. J. Dionne: The Health Care Race to Christmas

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_health_care_race_to_christmas_20091206/?ln

The Health Care Race to Christmas

Posted on Dec 6, 2009
White House / Pete Souza

By E.J. Dionne


This is the paradox of the moment: President Barack Obama’s speech on Afghanistan and his subsequent jobs summit underscored why it’s essential to get a health care bill done quickly. The calendar of politics has an urgency that the dilatory pace of the U.S. Senate doesn’t match.

Here’s the deal. If Obama gets to sign a health care bill before he gives his State of the Union address, he starts 2010 with a historic victory to proclaim before the country, and then can pivot quickly to the issue likely to dominate the midterm elections: jobs and how to create them.

The Afghanistan speech showed that a president’s power to control the agenda is limited. The last thing Obama wants is for the public discussion to focus on a war that is neither popular in his own party nor particularly loved by the middle of the electorate.

His speech on the troop buildup last week was thus from the head, not the heart. He was doing what he felt he had to do, not what he yearned to do. He wasn’t elected to be a war president. But circumstances require him to be one anyway. Indeed, the line he recited with the most passion was: “The nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.”

snip//

The core issues of this debate have been settled. The Congressional Budget Office has swept away the major arguments that opponents of reform have been trying to make. The bill before the Senate would cut the deficit, not increase it, and would stabilize or reduce health care premiums for most people, not raise them. The proposal contains serious cost-control measures that can be built on over time. Passing health care reform is thus not only morally necessary, but also fiscally responsible.

But getting there will be much harder if the Senate doesn’t act this year. Obama is right that nation-building should begin at home. Health care reform will mark the beginning of domestic nation-building.

[Clio the Leo]

1. Isn't the State of the Union usually at the end of January?

Or is it flexable? Rep. Grayson said the other day (and for the first time I'd heard anyone say it) that he expects the President to sign the bill "by February." ..... Does the President decide when to give it? (I realize he gave the address to Congress last February, but he didn't come in to office until late January.)

[Cha]

2. Nobody likes this

war but it's something that needs to be stepped up so we can bring them home.

Hopefully the Pres will be able to sign the Health Care Reform this year.