GOP Holding Unusually Firm on Health Reform Could Flip House

Although it's hard to imagine the cartoonish nonsense peddled by the lunatic fringe that represents the Republican party holding out another eight and a half months. Newt Gingrich today was out complaining about Obama's "Hugo Chavez-like" attempt at governing with a majority.

But, again, I want to know where Republicans think they're going to pick up ten seats in the Senate and forty in the House, particularly when they have no agenda, no message other than "no," and a rapidly diminishing base. Do they go after the Tea Partiers or the sane conservatives that still give them a chance at some moderate votes? Or skip the whole thing and, like the candidate Secretary of State in Kansas, just push to make sure that Democratic constituencies can't vote?

Ash McGonigal of KS 1:50PM February 25, 2010

Obama's health care reform bill does not include a public option!

60 House Democrats promised that they would not sign any final bill that does not include a public option. If they go back on their word, toss them out in November 2010 or primary them before then if at all possible.

Progressive Change and Fire Dog Lake have both documented how Obama flip-flopped on his promise to include a public option in the HCR bill that he signs.

At YouTube ("Obama Promised"):

Obama: "Any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest..."

The sell out met with Big Insurance and Big Pharma behind closed doors, though. His HCR bill will line the pockets of Big Insurance & Big Pharma. He, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, Nelson and others are sell-outs.

Mike of AR 12:45AM February 25, 2010

Mr. Hoff's analysis is extremely biased.

Republicans have been operating "in bad faith" on health care reform since the beginning.

They have absolutely no interest in a positive outcome for any Obama legislation, especially health care reform and they don't hide this fact. "Defeating Obama's health care agenda is going to be a huge gain for those of us who want to turn this thing over in the 2010 election," Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Ok). "There's one thing we gotta stop is health care. I'm serious, now. If they get that, then that's the tipping point," Rush Limbaugh.

Obstructionist Republican obstructionist posturing is basically campaign politics, with an eye to the mid-terms and 2010, a conscious strategy to derail the Obama administration, hence why they vote "NO" in blocks, even on ideas and bills that they have contributed to or originated. (Mr. Hoff - you should review the President's website www.healthreform.gov...I believe it shows you ALL the many Republican contributions to his bill, and there's a lot, my friend).

Proof of Republican partisan obstructionism & inability to deal "in good faith", even if they lie on TV about their desire to be bi-partisan and accusations that it's the Democrats who are shutting them out...yesterday, when Senator Brown voted "YES" on the Democrats' jobs bill, he was publicly skewered for doing so. His action was called "outrageous".

What, I ask, is the point of having a Congress, if the representatives of American citizenry are acting out of self-interested political motivation, and not on behalf of the interests of the American people.

In cases like this, when the "bad faith" of the Minority Party has been exposed, reconciliation is not only justified, it is necessary to avoid gridlock & paralysis. After all, government is supposed to serve America, not itself.

Arabella of NY 7:12PM February 24, 2010

Both Todd of PA and Peter Roff see band-aid measures as having potential in our ongoing soap opera called "Health Care Reform." Those measures--tort reform, insurance exchanges, interstate purchase of insurance, electronic records, fee for success not service, state initiatives, and others--comprise a pathetic list the collection of which won't come close to lowering health care costs enough. (Americans, remember, pay twice as much PER person for health care coverage than anyone anywhere else in the industrialized world, and they do so without, by any measure, better results!) REAL health care reform, the kind that could bring costs in line with those in other places, was torpedoed from the start by private insurers and Big Pharma, who saw their gravy boat as much as sunk if they didn't launch torpedoes first--hundreds of millions of dollars spent on lobbying, campaign contributions, and an advertising blitz to prevent Single Payer and its feebler sequel plan, Public Option, from having any chance of success.

There went all the opportunity for BIG savings in this country.

Claims of "socialized medicine," made by those who obviously have not experienced it first hand, scared the bejeebers out of those who are easily fooled into thinking what health care industry corporate interests and their political allies want them to think.

Obama's "summit" to bring together the parties over the band-aid measures is thus doomed to far less than desirable results.

Cost containment in health care is a lost dream, the nibbling around the edges now possible but a drop in the bucket. Portability of insurance coverage, so necessary to those who change or lose jobs, is no longer on the table. And there is nothing at all to stop private insurers (like Wellpoint's Anthem Blue Cross) from hiking rates at the drop of a hat and, thus,from running off with our money again and again. After all, REAL competition among insurers and providers of medical goods and services has been left on the cutting room floor.

Single Payer and, to lesser degree, Public Option were the real answer to health care reform in this country. No use crying over spilt milk, though. To the victors, private insurers and Big Pharma, go the spoils: our money for ever-increasing insurance premiums. To the loser, we the people, come the bills.

Comprehend, Todd of PA and Peter Roff?

Ron W. Smith of UT 6:06PM February 24, 2010