Obama's health warning
As hopes of compromise on reform fade at televised bipartisan summit, President hints at political war
Chances of a last-ditch bipartisan deal on US healthcare reform faded yesterday as Republican leaders told Barack Obama to jettison the current Democratic proposals now marooned in Congress and restart the process from scratch.
At an extraordinary public "summit" of the leaders of both parties, the Republicans also warned their opponents not to try to "jam through" reform in the Senate by the use of a controversial procedural device.
In recent days, the White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have dropped loud hints that, failing agreement, they would resort to the "reconciliation" mechanism that would require only 51 votes for Senate passage, instead of the 60 needed to overturn a Republican filibuster.
"We believe we have better ideas," said Lamar Alexander, Senator and former governor of Tennessee, as he set out the Republicans' case. "We want you to succeed, because if you succeed, the country succeeds. But we want you to change direction on healthcare. This [the current Democratic Bill] is a car that can't be recalled and fixed," Mr Alexander said, urging Mr Obama to come up with a smaller, more incremental measure.
The exchanges grew more pointed. John Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, warned of "fundamental differences" between the parties "that cannot be papered over", while Harry Reid tartly told Mr Alexander that he was entitled to his own opinions, "but not to your own facts".
"I'd like to hope this won't be political theatre, just playing to the cameras," President Obama said as he opened proceedings in Blair House, the government guesthouse just across from the White House. Then he invoked the death of his mother from cancer and the childhood illnesses of his daughters in making his case.
There had already been a spat over whether the table at which the participants sat should be in a U or an O shape. The exchanges thereafter turned into theatre, or, more precisely, a televised boxing match, in which both sides rolled out their most powerful punches.
Yesterday effectively opened the endgame of the healthcare debate that has dominated Washington politics for the last nine months. After hopes of filibuster-proof Senate passage effectively died with the loss in January of Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts, the President on Monday put forward for the first time his own proposals, raising the stakes even higher.
Mr Obama clearly reckons that having invested so much time, energy and political capital in healthcare reform, he cannot abandon the project now. But privately, Democrats and Republicans agree that the Easter recess that starts in early April has become a de facto deadline for a Bill. With November's mid-term elections already on the horizon, both parties are desperate to switch the focus to the economy and jobs, the issues that matter most to voters.
If anything, the Republicans seemed to have the better of the televised argument. The waspish Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader who along with Mr Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become a symbol of the gridlocked legislative process, adroitly left the early talking to the folksy Mr Alexander. At times, Mr Obama seemed on his own in fending off Republican criticism.
He also appeared irritable as discussions wandered off substantive arguments back to all-too-familiar talking points. But the basic problem remained: how to extend coverage to the 46 million Americans without health insurance, and reduce the costs of a system that consumes 18 per cent of the US economy and threatens to drown the country in debt.
Mr Reid claimed that 750,000 people had been forced into bankruptcy in 2008 by healthcare bills, and that each year 45,000 Americans die because they lack coverage. Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn – a doctor by training – insisted that 20 per cent of government healthcare spending was fraudulent, and eliminating this fraud could cut costs by 10 per cent or more.
What happens next is unclear. The use of reconciliation in the Senate would infuriate Republicans, and make them even more unwilling to co-operate on healthcare, or anything else. The Bill's fate in the House, where the original proposal passed last year by just five votes, has also become uncertain. Since then, at least two supporters have defected and a third has died.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
The Republicans didn't win the last election, neither did the health industry lobbyists. Obama should be allowed to push through his reforms his way. If people don't like it they only have to wait four years, the next election will offer another chance to change things. That's how the democratic process works, it's really disturbing to watch big money undermining the political process and ideals of the founding fathers.
(1). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD-gkXAN
(2). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Gnd85v
(3). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN3z4eeT
In short, Americans have realised (at the eleventh hour) that their healthcare system is the envy of the world and that they have unwittingly put a Marxists into office who's hellbent on destroying it in favour of a third rate socialised "healthcare" system where people wait up to a year or more to begin chemotherapy following the diagnosis of caner.
Obama is a naked Marxists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJqic0KB
Sir, you're either a dumbed-down liberal, a shortsighted socialist, or a stubborn (I want the state to pay for everything) fool.
Just because the American system is American doesn't mean it's any better to die in.
Is �10 a week really so very expensive? How much is two packs of cigarettes, three pints of beer, a takeaway pizza?
"Mr Reid claimed that 750,000 people had been forced into bankruptcy in 2008 by healthcare bills, and that each year 45,000 Americans die because they lack coverage." Mr Reid said it so it must be true. Or do you choose to believe Hannan because his name comes earlier in the alphabet then Reid? As good a reason as any.
I have to say that reading everything you have posted here it does help dispprove the theory that people from the US don't do irony.
I have a friend in the UK in their 70's that has private healthcare, she pays �600 per month, that is �150 per week, or roughly $280 in your country, PER WEEK.
One other question, what happens in the US healthcare system if you get a repetitive illness, do you still get treated?
Btw, I am self employed, do not get any support from the state, and buying my own house, I do not know about the socialist/liberal bit because we never had a nutjob called McCathy to brainwash our family's.
I just don't know where people get their information from at times.
Check for yourself: https://www.activequote.com/health-insu
I don't have to watch idiot Tory MP's declaiming on YouTube (totally against his party's policy, I might add, the Conservatives are officially pro-NHS, they'd never win an election if they were against it), to know that the English national health service is brilliant. Sure any system has faults but the NHS has given us fantastic service across four family generations at a very reasonable cost in taxation. You don't see anti tax rallies in Europe except in Greece where US influences via Goldman Sachs have helped undermine their financial systems and bolster a generation of tax evading crooks. My friends in France and Germany have an even better health system but then they pay slightly more tax. The only mass rallies you'll see in Europe are rallies like the recent one in Barcelona against the rising of the pension age. No one who isn't stinking rich over here wants the US financial or healthcare systems imported, we've already had a whiff of US sue-everybody and enrich the lawyers culture and quite frankly it stinks.
The only reason that the US has a problem with welfare and healthcare is that the rich elites have exported most US jobs to China, Mexico and anywhere in the world that can manage slavery quietly. The only people enjoying "socialism" in the USA are the top 10% who have privatised wealth and dumped losses into the public domain. The bailout of the Banksters being the prime in your face example..
2) If the American healthcare system is the envy of the world why are no countries trying to make their healthcare systems more like the US'?
The American Republican Health Care system has long since failed the people of the US and needs to be replaced with a more European, Socialist system.
So tell me. As a socialist, you believe that all property is theft - moreover, theft of the state. If I, (as an official of the sate) were to borrow your wife, would you object?
Is this just too hard for the Capitalists to accept, or a little difficult for them to understand/comprehend.
State-run healthcare waiting list are notoriously long. If you've just been diagnosed with cancer which sector would you rather be treated in? As a private patient, you start life saving/prolonging treatment within 2 weeks with a host of additional benefits/medicines that a NHS style healthcare systems simply cannot/will not give to you - (postcode lotteries etc.)
I haven't got anything against Cuba. I just know that the Cuban healthcare system is stuck in the 60's and many of their hospitals are crawling with cockroaches.
These are the Cuban hospitals that Michael Moore wouldn't show you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25_RgM1j
Commies: Naive and shortsighted and lacking in spirit of cooperation.
"If you were America would you trust Cuba after that?" 45 years on - yes I might, do you trust Japan? The world has changed except for you - you do know the cold war finished during Reagan's presidency and we won. If you seriously think Cuba is a threat to the USA then you are deranged.
And my favourite bit
"Commies: Naive and shortsighted and lacking in spirit of cooperation" - fantastic, a person who contantly attacks the NHS then attacks Commies (so many of them left nowadays) for lacking a spirit of cooperation - how are you cooperating with the uninsured poor? So brilliant it goes in my "Couldn't make it up" column.
What do you know about American-Cuban historical relations? Ever heard of the Spanish-American
War of 1898? That was an early example of direct U.S. meddling in Latin America, and under the
pretext of "feeling sorry for the poor Cubans under the Spanish yoke", the Yanks went on to attack
the Spaniards, unfortunately winning the battle - and also taking the Philippines for good measure on the other side of the Pacific, happy at last over their first-ever colonial conquest in the Far East.
But you wouldn't know that, would you? Not only is health care in a bad state in the U.S., but, alas,
also, school education is sorely wanting.
United States comes in at 38th.
Even the UK comes in at 22nd.
I really don't know where you think that the US system is good. You already have your own lottery which is the how much do you earn lottery. If you are born into poverty then you have serious problems under the US system.
And oh did you know thet Hawaii has compulsory health insurance. Is Hawaii communist? What can't you roll out a model that already works in one of the states of your own country?
My level-3 Bupa cover here in the UK costs me �44 a month.
Globalism (everything being produced in China by the Chinese) is putting the American out of work and finances are becoming tight for them. But like the Brits' Americans never voted for mass-unemployment brought about by an abrupt end to their own manufacturing base.
Don't blame private health care for being unaffordable - BLame Obama and Bush for selling the American out.
But it doesn't really matter. Quite a few states are just introducing their own universal healthcare and sidestepping the federal system. They don't want to wait.
goods to them because their own companies don't want to pay high wages to their own dedicated employees at home , many of whom have worked for them for a good part of their lives.
USA is 78.1
Cuba is 77.5 (despite the embargo)
What does that tell you about the NHS system? Plus we have both private and public healthcare systems so people CAN take their pick here. I have had no problems either with private or NHS treatment.
I think it would be better for the American people to have the choice.
case, and even encourage patients to ask questions. In other words, this rapport between doctors and patients has a positive therapeutic effect which benefits the cancer patient.
So what's communistic about social healthcare of this model?
We are not stupid people. We analyse the survival rates of NHS style care against private care and draw an informed opinion from such studies. If the NHS worked, we'd use it and save on private healthcare costs.
entertainment, drugs, drinks - and downright bored, so they indulge in the sex-group games to amuse themselves. As for socialism...you have no idea what it's all about, and just spout half-baked clichees you were brought up on in your so-called democratic sysrtem.
What's �44 a month these days? I pay more for my Sky TV package.
I predict that what the health care "summit" will produce will be the loss of this war for Republicans over this issue of health care. The summit produced a simple choice for the American people: something or nothing. They are going to choose "something" because they are really hurting and cannot wait for the Republican's to turn the economy around enough to make it possible for them to continue paying a huge amount of their own money for minimal health care that they receive thanks to the "free market" system of competition.