Post by unlawflcombatnt on Mar 28, 2010 19:02:04 GMT -6
from the Examiner.com
Rewriting Obama history on healthcare
March 27, 2010
by Marc Rubin--Obama Administration Examiner
"There is now a movement afoot, especially in the media ( those stalwarts of accuracy and truth over pandering) to give Obama credit for the healthcare bill that was just passed, using "facts" that don't exist and propositions that have no basis in reality.
What Obama should get credit for is signing the bill, making 56 speeches that accounted for nothing and, had he been left to his own devices, would have dropped healthcare reform as a priority right after the Scott Brown election. He can also be credited with dropping the public option, giving no direction to congress and wasting 10 months trying to get one needless Republican vote.
But the biggest lie in the media is that Obama was able to get something done that no president before him was able to accomplish though many have tried.
The truth is no president before had the kind of Democratic majorities in the House and senate Obama had, and given those majorities he would have been the biggest bust in history if, with those huge majorities he couldn't have gotten healthcare passed. And if then he almost blew it and ended up with a bill that even its supporters call "better than nothing".
Obama himself actually got nothing done. He practically admitted as much when he tried to claim, in an article in the New York Times, that he gave no input, no direction, no strategy and drew no lines in the sand, nor lobbied nor pushed for anything and according to the White House spin, it was all part of a grand strategy. Kind of like a Rope-a-Dope. Doing nothing as a strategy. But it was a lot more dope than rope.
His lack of leadership led to 3 separate bills in the House, one in the senate, capitulating to Joe Lieberman and Democrats in congress grumbling that he was virtually AWOL when it came to anything but making a speech.
Nevertheless leave it to say that his doing nothing was the driving force behind getting the bill passed. Only Obama could take credit for not taking credit for something he was taking credit for.
He also said in an interview that his big mistake on healthcare (when he was about to walk away from it ) was that he made policy more important than process. Its the opposite that's true. By making bipartisanship a goal he made process more important than policy because this or any bill could have been passed back in June using reconciliation but Obama wanted to promote the myth that he can "bring people together" so the country and the Democrats had to go through 10 months of angst and political bloodletting to prove that no, he cant bring people together.
The inconvenient truth for the myth makers is that after the Scott Brown election Obama was all but ready to put healthcare on the back burner saying he "had learned the lesson of the Brown election" and was going to focus on jobs and the economy. Notice how quickly the media and sycophants want to forget that.
Credit goes to Al Franken who even though a freshman senator stood up in a meeting with Axelrod and Democratic senators that was supposed to be about what to do next after the Brown victory, and got into a shouting match with Axelrod, accusing he and Obama of essentially selling out health care reform and having no commitment to it by putting it aside.
It was Franken, other senators, Nancy Pelosi's tenacity and other congressional Democrats that dragged Obama back into making healthcare reform front and center. And what did Obama do?
The day after it was privately made clear to him that Democrats saw healthcare reform as the most important part of their agenda, Obama went out in public and made a speech telling Congressional Democrats to show some backbone and fight and not let healthcare go on the back burner. Pure Obama. Whatta guy.
The best anyone has been able to say about the bill that Obama said was "95% of everything he wanted" is that its better than nothing. It has no cost controls which means while insurance companies cant drop people for pre-existing conditions there is nothing stopping them from passing the added costs on to everyone else and the same is true for dropping people for catastrophic illnesses.
Yes for the moment its better that we all pay more so these people can get the healthcare they need but a public option would ( and still will) solve that problem a lot better while lowering substantially the cost of health insurance for everyone, something "Obama's" plan doesn't do.
And the mandate that people buy health insurance? Anyone remember Obama slamming Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan from one end of the country to the other during the primaries because it included insurance mandates?
And last but not least, it was Richard Nixon who said he wanted to try and create " a whole new system" of healthcare so that everyone could get the healthcare they needed. A new system. And Obama? He said constantly that he didn't want to create a new system but would work with the one we had ( to try and mollify the right). And that philosophical failure also contributed to no public option and a bill that leaves a lot to be desired.
The Democrats in congress deserve a lot of credit along with some progressive PACS for rescuing healthcare reform, not from the Republicans but from Obama. With his vacillation, lack of commitment, unwillingness to stand up to Joe Lieberman or the insurance companies, Obama was almost as big an obstacle as the Republicans, even if unintended.
The promise is that the Democrats in congress will make the bill better before the November elections, including passing a public option.
But Obama himself deserves no credit for what happened. Healthcare reform has been a goal by many presidents for 60 years. Obama is the first to have the majorities to do something and the result was a lot less than could have been achieved. And a lot messier. And the sooner that is understood, the sooner the congress will realize, if it hasn't already, that its up to them to take matters into their own hands from now on.
As for the media and Obama, like just about everything else, they just cant seem to get it right."
Rewriting Obama history on healthcare
March 27, 2010
by Marc Rubin--Obama Administration Examiner
"There is now a movement afoot, especially in the media ( those stalwarts of accuracy and truth over pandering) to give Obama credit for the healthcare bill that was just passed, using "facts" that don't exist and propositions that have no basis in reality.
What Obama should get credit for is signing the bill, making 56 speeches that accounted for nothing and, had he been left to his own devices, would have dropped healthcare reform as a priority right after the Scott Brown election. He can also be credited with dropping the public option, giving no direction to congress and wasting 10 months trying to get one needless Republican vote.
But the biggest lie in the media is that Obama was able to get something done that no president before him was able to accomplish though many have tried.
The truth is no president before had the kind of Democratic majorities in the House and senate Obama had, and given those majorities he would have been the biggest bust in history if, with those huge majorities he couldn't have gotten healthcare passed. And if then he almost blew it and ended up with a bill that even its supporters call "better than nothing".
Obama himself actually got nothing done. He practically admitted as much when he tried to claim, in an article in the New York Times, that he gave no input, no direction, no strategy and drew no lines in the sand, nor lobbied nor pushed for anything and according to the White House spin, it was all part of a grand strategy. Kind of like a Rope-a-Dope. Doing nothing as a strategy. But it was a lot more dope than rope.
His lack of leadership led to 3 separate bills in the House, one in the senate, capitulating to Joe Lieberman and Democrats in congress grumbling that he was virtually AWOL when it came to anything but making a speech.
Nevertheless leave it to say that his doing nothing was the driving force behind getting the bill passed. Only Obama could take credit for not taking credit for something he was taking credit for.
He also said in an interview that his big mistake on healthcare (when he was about to walk away from it ) was that he made policy more important than process. Its the opposite that's true. By making bipartisanship a goal he made process more important than policy because this or any bill could have been passed back in June using reconciliation but Obama wanted to promote the myth that he can "bring people together" so the country and the Democrats had to go through 10 months of angst and political bloodletting to prove that no, he cant bring people together.
The inconvenient truth for the myth makers is that after the Scott Brown election Obama was all but ready to put healthcare on the back burner saying he "had learned the lesson of the Brown election" and was going to focus on jobs and the economy. Notice how quickly the media and sycophants want to forget that.
Credit goes to Al Franken who even though a freshman senator stood up in a meeting with Axelrod and Democratic senators that was supposed to be about what to do next after the Brown victory, and got into a shouting match with Axelrod, accusing he and Obama of essentially selling out health care reform and having no commitment to it by putting it aside.
It was Franken, other senators, Nancy Pelosi's tenacity and other congressional Democrats that dragged Obama back into making healthcare reform front and center. And what did Obama do?
The day after it was privately made clear to him that Democrats saw healthcare reform as the most important part of their agenda, Obama went out in public and made a speech telling Congressional Democrats to show some backbone and fight and not let healthcare go on the back burner. Pure Obama. Whatta guy.
The best anyone has been able to say about the bill that Obama said was "95% of everything he wanted" is that its better than nothing. It has no cost controls which means while insurance companies cant drop people for pre-existing conditions there is nothing stopping them from passing the added costs on to everyone else and the same is true for dropping people for catastrophic illnesses.
Yes for the moment its better that we all pay more so these people can get the healthcare they need but a public option would ( and still will) solve that problem a lot better while lowering substantially the cost of health insurance for everyone, something "Obama's" plan doesn't do.
And the mandate that people buy health insurance? Anyone remember Obama slamming Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan from one end of the country to the other during the primaries because it included insurance mandates?
And last but not least, it was Richard Nixon who said he wanted to try and create " a whole new system" of healthcare so that everyone could get the healthcare they needed. A new system. And Obama? He said constantly that he didn't want to create a new system but would work with the one we had ( to try and mollify the right). And that philosophical failure also contributed to no public option and a bill that leaves a lot to be desired.
The Democrats in congress deserve a lot of credit along with some progressive PACS for rescuing healthcare reform, not from the Republicans but from Obama. With his vacillation, lack of commitment, unwillingness to stand up to Joe Lieberman or the insurance companies, Obama was almost as big an obstacle as the Republicans, even if unintended.
The promise is that the Democrats in congress will make the bill better before the November elections, including passing a public option.
But Obama himself deserves no credit for what happened. Healthcare reform has been a goal by many presidents for 60 years. Obama is the first to have the majorities to do something and the result was a lot less than could have been achieved. And a lot messier. And the sooner that is understood, the sooner the congress will realize, if it hasn't already, that its up to them to take matters into their own hands from now on.
As for the media and Obama, like just about everything else, they just cant seem to get it right."