Obama Resists As Liberals Attack Health Care Bill

[Purveyor]

(12-17) 14:51 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The White House and its allies scrambled Thursday to quash a growing liberal assault on a much-compromised health care proposal, hoping to keep President Barack Obama's top domestic priority from being crushed between the political left and right.

In Senate speeches, TV appearances, blogs and other outlets, Obama's supporters said the latest attacks are exaggerated and troubling, because Senate Democratic leaders can't spare a single vote in trying to overcome fierce GOP opposition.

But some prominent liberals, led by former presidential candidate Howard Dean, say the Senate bill is so diluted that it's worse than nothing at all. Powerful labor unions were equally disenchanted but urged lawmakers to press on, hoping to improve the bill in House-Senate negotiations.

"Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health care reform," Dean, a doctor and former Vermont governor and national Democratic Party chairman, said in an op-ed column in the Washington Post.

Top White House adviser David Axelrod disputed Dean's claims and urged party activists to embrace an important if imperfect bill.

"We're on the doorstep of doing something really meaningful," Axelrod said in an interview. No one is entirely satisfied with the bill, he said, but it includes long-sought health insurance regulations and other items too important to lose.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/17/national/w144659S58.DTL#ixzz0ZzTDoG1S

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Surprise, surprise!

We're angry because we've just been sold to the highest bidder: the insurance companies!:puke:

Meaningful, my ass.

Meaningful to just who?

Not us, not so much.


:argh:

[damntexdem]

2. They're on the doorstep of doing something really horrible. Kill the bill!

There is no reform there worth suffering for -- basically, no real reform there at all.

[lapfog_1]

3. Yes, his minions have been all over this board all freakin day.

Not reasonable discourse. No agreement or even cogent discussion of the facts. Attack Attack Attack.

I haven't been called so many names since the primaries. And that was when I was here supporting Obama.

It's weird.

Oh, hey, Axelrod... bite me.

[girl gone mad]

11. Yeah, I don't get that strategy at all.

Belittling and demeaning will not win people over and will not get them to shut up. If anything, it has the opposite effect.

[YOY]

4. Well those "moderate"...they have to resist us "crazy radical leftists"...

and our new fangled ideas that fucking work everywhere else in the goddamn developed world...

[IndianaGreen]

9. We are bitter public option supporters

We are clinging to Medicare for all.

[brentspeak]

5. "[A]ny plan I sign must include...a public option"

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obama-demands-the-bill-i-sign-must-include-public-option.php

[Jamastiene]

21. if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a

house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSnqofelsQ

Another complete 180.

[rhett o rick]

6. If Pres Obama isn't "entirely satisfied with the bill" then he should speak out.

But his silence speaks mountains.

[ima_sinnic]

10. the same vast silence we heard all summer as Baucus had single-payer advocates arrested

he is nothing but a charlatan front-man for the corporate bloodsuckers, enjoying his war profits and pharmaceutical/insurance co. kickbacks and perks.

[jwirr]

13. His silence speaks mountains. Not just the his thoughts but there

is a decided lack of statements that tell us exactly why this bill will do the job. What exactly is in it that they want? I am not asking for an answer from DU but from the senate and WH. They have not done a thing publically to support this plan from the beginning. Where is the leadership in this country?

[Larkspur]

7. Obama has to contend with something Bill Clinton did not...

per Thom Hartmann, its the internet and us savvy progressive activists.

It was Howard Dean's 2003-04 campaign that helped get us better organized and find each other. Obama thought he coopted Dean's formula, but in reality WE own it and WE are Obama's bosses, not the other way around.

[depakid]

15. +1

[rhett o rick]

22. We gave Pres Obama enough rope and he has hung himself. Stick a fork in, he is done. nt

[IndianaGreen]

8. Obama surrenders to Lieberman, and 'resists' progressives

What is wrong with this picture?

[rhett o rick]

23. We have given him more than enough support. He has spit in our faces. nt

[progressoid]

12. Yeah, pissing off liberals and unions. That's a great plan.

[senseandsensibility]

14. Unbelievable.

Their absolute tone deafness is unbelievable, and frankly, I've already begun tuning them out.

[old mark]

16. We are on the doorstep of doing something that may possibly be

somewhat better than nothing.

Not as good a slogan as "change we can believe in", is it?

I voted for you Obama, and I believed in you. But I see now that you are just another political hack.

I believe the Senate bill will pass despite outrage on both extremes, and we will see who was right and if it leads to anything good.

mark

[calico1]

17. I think some of you misunderstood what was meant by

"change you can believe in." I think it means a little change in your pockets...if your lucky.


:sarcasm:

[rhett o rick]

18. It aint just the liberals attacking this crappy health care bill. Tell me what segment of the

population that likes this bill. Only the insurance killers and their bought and paid for Congress. Drag out the guillotines.

[rhett o rick]

19. We are at war. It is clearly the ruling class vs. the rest of us. Whose side is the Pres on?

I think it is clear now. I been able to give him the benefit of the doubt until now. I been able to shrug off the insults of his henchman Rahm. But Pres Obama's apparent acceptance of the piece of shit the Senate calls health insurance reform is an insult.

[beachmom]

20. Ah, the old "Democrats are divided", except thanks to Dean & his netroots friends it's true.