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No one can blame President Barack Obama for not trying.
For nearly a year, the president has tried to bring opposition Republicans into discussions on how to revamp the nation's troubled health care system. And for nearly a year, Obama has been met with opponents who criticize almost everything he proposes but offer few solutions.
So now it's time for Republicans, and the rest of the country, to jump aboard the Obama Health Care Reconciliation Train and see where the ride takes us.
The ongoing bitterly partisan negotiations ended with last week's interesting yet fruitless White House Health Care Summit.
The session opened with Obama requesting Republican initiatives on health care reform. Republicans responded with a request for a blank sheet of paper to start working on a new reform plan.
Obama, rightfully, has come to the conclusion that to the GOP, bipartisanship means giving up everything the Democrats want. And that's not happening. It shouldn't.
The president has concluded that making tough decisions on complex issues, such as rewriting the nation's health care legislation, is exactly why we have elections. And for better or worse, it is Obama and the Democrats who run the White House and both the House and Senate.
If they can't enact legislation they support now, when will they ever be able to?
To be fair, Obama and Democrats, for all their talk of working with Republicans, were not going to rewrite their measure to completely suit the GOP.
But in taking off the table the "public option" for a government-run insurance system, which angered many progressive Democrats, Obama showed he was willing to compromise. But those days are done.
Now, Republicans are whining about the use of reconciliation to pass health care reform. Reconciliation has been used in the past for important legislation by both parties but more often by Republicans. And it will be used again.
Republicans have raised some legitimate concerns about the health care reform package. It does represent a wrenching change in one of the nation's most vital industries. It does contain sweetheart deals for individual states that don't seem fair, and proposed cuts to Medicare could force seniors into new coverage packages they don't want.
The Democratic health care reform package is far from perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.
Either way, Republicans are learning that when compromise ends, politics can be a brutal game, and losing presidential elections comes at a cost.
Comments: (10)
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By: Tish on 3/01/2010 1:46PM
I'm all for the train. The sad thing is these greedy people are clueless about the cost of this problem. This is the thing that has brought this country down. At the rate it is going, I will end up paying my pension check for insurance. As of today it has gone up 100%. Insurance in the country is the sleeper cell, it is slipping up on us for the second kill. The racist republican are so dumb to what is really going on, because of the hate for the President and the color of his skin.
If you don't believe it look at that nut job holding up the renew for unemployment.
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By: Mike on 3/01/2010 5:10PM
Tish,
I am one of those Greedy People you speak about. I am also a business owner. Obama is as White as he is Black and nobody I know didn't vote for him because he is Black. It is his inexperience and radical ideas that make him unsavory. You obviously have no concern about costs as this plan will cost us all far more than they propose. I will fight this ridiculous plan as much as I can. There are things that need to be changed but to change the whole system all at once is not the way to do it. You wouldn't tear down a house because it needed new windows.
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By: Tish on 3/01/2010 9:58PM
Mike,
This plan if you read or heard anything about it, shows that, it will be so high that no one does anything about it, no one will have it. I had enough when I went to the Town Hall meeting where they were screaming don't mess with my medicare. That let's me know that the average person is clueless about the change. Medicare is government ran. Yet there are people calling themselves, tea baggers, but they come out after the horse is out of the barn. Something else I haven't notice, where are the chocalate teabaggers. As they speak about taking their country back. Who are they taking it from. Million dollar question where in the hell where these hateful people when bush was in office spending like a drukin sailor. Again the so call republicans whom have stole the republican party are as racist as they come.
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By: Nathan Scott on 3/02/2010 10:24PM
I'm pretty sure they don't call themselves Tea Baggers, that is a name made up by MSNBC host to insult those they disagree with.
There are "chocolate" tea party attendees. The better question is "Why aren't there more."
I voted for Gore, Kerry, and Obama, and I'm against what is going. You don't empower and lift up society by having the "have nots" wantonly steal from the have's. Why work a day in your life if you can just take what you want?
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By: Tish on 3/03/2010 1:44AM
Nathan,
I don't see it as a free ride for anyone. That the problem so many people use that to get their point across, of trying to say a certain group of people want something for free. When you watch a 40 year old man die from being a diabetic, who work three jobs and that was just to live. Health care was to expensive to purchase. So I would help with testing kits and meds when I could. I don't blame the choclate tea baggers for not going to the rallies. Media didn't give them that name they statred that crap with the first thing President Obama put out there for a change. That group of people (tea baggers) spew nothing but hate using as they say what the fore fathers of this country was built on. They are trying to use what the country was built on, The BOR and The Constitution and yet they speak ill of people that are not like them. I'm willing to bet none of them know what it says.
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By: rbk84 on 3/01/2010 4:28PM
Obama should have used reconcilliation at the beginning of the process and saved the public option which is cheaper than what he has on the table now. We got hosed by him and the democrats on this issue. The game of the republicans aren't playing fair is just a rouse to keep us from calling them on their game. Overwhelming poll numbers show that the public option is what the american people wanted in their healthcare system. This watered down version is to appease the corporate struture that continue to control our lives. To many black folk believe in the two parties that control our government. We have always been taken for granted by both parties, and was hoping for real change this time. Obama can continue to get support from black folk but thats not going to elect him again. The progressive wing of the democratic party are fed up with this guy. When he sent troops to the afghan war, when he increased the military budget during the economic downturn, when he is allowing clinton and others try and drum up a war with Iran, when he appointed wall street nutjobs into his cabinet, and didn't hold those responsible for the collapse to make ammends, when he refused to prosecute Bush and Cheny for war crimes and allow them to go on without any explanation to the Iraq war the list goes on and on. These issues will come back to haunt him next election cycle, because the real liberal base that elected him are not going to support him. If you don't belive me you should start reading other liberal opinions than whats on this website. Black voices are not the only voice that elected this guy. Black folk should prepare themselves for the rollback that will occur when Obama is out of office. These times we are living in is just temporary. All those black folk who are trumpeting the we are all americans, will have a different mantra come the january when Obama leaves office.
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By: claraise Terrell on 3/06/2010 8:53PM
I agree with most of what you are saying. Blacks need to remember we ALMOST LOSS OUR RIGHT TO VOTE!
Women and Blacks are the only group (? )whom was not included in the Constituton as "WE the People"
Lincoln's freeing of slaves was polically driven
and not so much that he cared about Black slave. I voted for Obama because I beleived he would make a "Good leader/strong" leader,capable of bringing the change he promised while he campained. His inclination to appease to every whim opposing him, comes across to me as weak, indecisive preventing any social progress
for all citizens of the United States. Greed comes in many forms Blacks/White etc, Capitialism is greed based. The rich get richer, the working majority who feds the economy , who builds this county is driven into an invisible population being victimized by the county they believed in, a county they built, a county they swore to die for in wars that they gained no rewards or true benefits. This the first time voicing out my feeling, escuse spelling and other errors.
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By: Jane on 3/02/2010 8:38AM
The slant of the Media, such as the Hyper overexposed coverage of the Tea Party Movement and the continuing coverage of every time Sara Palin Tweets, has been against the middle class,low wage workers and poor.Why are we not revolting in the street to slant the coverage the other way?
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By: Terry Harrison on 3/02/2010 1:20AM
I think everyone agrees that something needs to be done, but I don't thik a 2000 page solution is the answer. Being on Medicare and VA health System, I know the government runs these and pretty well, IMO. The problem is the insurance companies and law suits. Regulate and standardize medical premiums and put a cap on "pain and suffering". I've lived with pain for 50 years (military disability) but my wife, who is not yet eligible for medicare, pays a premium greater than my retirement pension. This needs to be reigned in.
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By: tram on 3/12/2010 11:20AM
WE NEED HEALTH CARE REFORM, EVERY PERSON NEEDS TO BE COVERED, WHEN YOU GO TO THE HOSPITAL IF YOUU DONT HAVE INSURENCE YOU WON'T BE TREATED, I KNOW WHEN I HAVE GONE TO THE HOSPITAL I HAVE TO STAY AND WAIT FOR THE NURSE TO ASK FOR MY MEDICAL CARD FROM BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD, SOME TIMES I HAVE BEEN SO SICK I FELT LIKE DYING, I NEEDED TREATMENT BUT HAVING TO WAIT FOR THEM TO CHECK MY MEDICAL CARD NUMBER AND THAT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ME BEING TREATED, WE NEED HEALTH CARE REFORM, I HAVE INSURANCE BUT THERE ARE SO MANY MORE PEOPLE WITH OUT IT, AND THE ONES WITH INSURANCE DOSEN'T CARE ABOUT PEOPLE WITH OUT INSURANCE.MAY GOD HELP PEOPLE TO BE MORE COMPASSIONATE TOWARD PEOPLE WITHOUT, I PRAY THAT THE BILL WILL BE PASSED. TRAM
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