Obama's Expensive Healthcare Reform Will Drive Conservative Democrats From Office
By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
When President Obama takes his healthcare reform program to prime time TV tonight he had better be secretly hoping that his appeal to the American people to support him fails to sway public opinion in his favor. That, because not only have Blue Dog (conservative) Democrats discovered that his healthcare plan will push this country deeper into an already massive debt, but if health reform passes, Mr. Obama will have pushed those Blue Dogs out of office in 2010.
The Blue Dogs come from shaky, as opposed to safe Democratic districts, where a wrong step on federal spending or taxes could whisk them out of office easily. When the public starts to realize how much healthcare reform will raise taxes, they'll vent their anger on Blue Dogs first and foremost. That's why conservative Democrats are smart enough to run in the other direction when the president comes calling for support:
But the president's push to get bills through the House and Senate before the August recess appears on shaky ground, as Democrats are divided over some of the measures proposed in the bills currently circulating in the House and Senate.
There are 51 Blue Dogs in the U.S. House, a sizeable chunk of the Democratic majority. But it's a chunk that was essentially formed to help Democrats ditch the moniker of "tax and spend" former President Ronald Reagan so aptly hung around their necks:
The Blue Dog coalition formed in 1995 after Republicans gained control of Congress. Their name plays on the South's longtime moniker of party loyalists as "Yellow Dogs." Coalition members said they had been "choked blue" by liberal spending.
The Democratic Party gained control of the House after the 2006 elections and expanded its majority by 21 seats to 257 this year with victories in 2008, many in Republican-leaning areas. In the past two elections, the Blue Dogs gained 15 members.
President Obama needs to start listening more to the Blue Dogs.
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Reader Comments
For public healthcare option
My family now has hope of finally being insured.
For more on this topic, visit my blog:
http://tomtommytom.blogspot.com/
Health insurance reform for families
I am writing in support of a strong public option for health care insurance, because I feel it is the best way to create competition among private insurance companies and get the kind of coverage my family wants and needs.
There are a few key things that would improve my family's current health insurance situation. If these things are not part of health insurance reform for the average family, what's the point of any reform at all?
1) Lower insurance premiums so that we don't have to choose between helping our children go to college and health care for ourselves. Recently our family income increased by 20% (about $10,000), but our health care premium increased at the same time by 300%, so that more than 1/4 of the recent income increase goes to health insurance coverage. Plus there is a $4000 yearly deductable on our plan. And this does not even cover dental, vision, or mental health expenses. At this time, we literally are regularly forced to make the following type of decision: between buying one text book for our college aged daughter ($250) and getting one of our broken teeth fixed ($280 - $1,800).
2) Insurance that is continuing, so that each time my husband changes jobs (or his company switches insurance providers), we don't have to keep changing our primary physician. (This has happened to us 4 times in the past 10 years, and I would like to have more continuity of care than that, especially as we get older.)
3) Insurance that doesn't disappear when my husband or I get sick. We have been very healthy all our lives, but we are both 50ish and worry that if we get seriously injured or ill, our insurance company may stop covering us even though we have each continuously paid heafty health insurance premiums for the past 30+ years.
4) Insurance that is portable, so that if a "pre-existing condition" such as a diagnosis of cancer (the type of illness my husband and I probably would be most likely to get) occurs, we can still more freely from one job to the next to improve our family financial situation without the threat of losing our health coverage.
As far as I and my family are concerned - health care reform is the most critical issue facing our family today. We can do our part to keep our excellent health, such as through exercise, diet, and safety precautions, but we purchase insurance in case of an unforeseen event. Since we live responsibly, and purchase this type of insurance, we don't want any dirty tricks should such an unforeseen event occur!
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Misinformed in GA
Dear Mr Turner.
To your point - you are severely misinformed. Example: I am a small business owner - I own and operate a franchise that has locations across the U.S. and in Canada. My fellow franchisees in Canada operate under the same business model I do and do quit well; in many cases better than their American counterparts. Canada has a single payer public health care system that functions very well for it's citizens. My Canadian aquaintances are all very happy with their health care system; no one dies waiting for care, no one is denied service anywhere. The only modernized nation in which this type of barbaric system exists is right here in the U.S of A.
News flash: Medicare is government funded health care insurance. I would like to see anyone in Congress propose to do away with it. What's more, understand this: we live in a representative democracy where majority rules. This is the only stipulatioin in the constitution that applies to this debate. The founding fathers did not stipulate weather or not healht care would be provided by the federal government, they did not stipulate weather or not there would be federal regulations on film and television, they did not stipulate that there would be speed limits on cars or standards for airport security because none of these things existed at the time! Perhaps you would prefer that we go back to the days where the doctor in your town, if there even was one, came to your house when you were sick and was paid as he left. Of course, this doctor did not attend a major university that he had to pay for and would likely suggest blood letting to cure your ailment! One thing the founding fathers did stipulate was a compromise allowing black slavery to continue in the southern states - perhaps you would like to revert to this practice as well.
The reality is that times are changing, the nation is changing, and all of the representatives ushering in these changes were duly elected under the very system that you claim to want to uphold. All of this is done within the framework of our democracy and the referendum we have as Americans is the vote. If you don't like it, change enough minds to alter it but don't stand there and wail because the executive and the congress are fulfilling the promises demanded of them by the majority of the voting public. Your side lost... deal with it. The he only so called "cronies" in Washington are the very corporate lobbyists who have filled your mind with this madness. The very monster that you claim to fear is corporate America, not the government, and they are the only ones who stand to lose if Obama's plan goes through.
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