The Dems Give Up On RepublicansFollow

New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/health/policy/19repubs.html?_r=2&hp



Well, so much for bipartisanship. I think the last straw was when Senator Grassley said that even if the Dems gave him everything he asked for in the final bill, he'd still vote against it just to give a big ol' @#%^ YOU to Obama.

The White House, upon hearing this from Grassley, said, "Ok, fine. We didn't need you anyway, we were just giving you the chance to play nice. But if you're gonna be like that, you don't get to play at all any more."

They're going to have to use reconciliation at this point, but if anyone can pull it off, Obama can. 60% of the country still approves of him, after all.

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 1:49pm by catwho

Actually, that might not be entirely true. MOST of the GOP didn't have any intention to work with the Obama administration on reforming healthcare; I'm sure some waited to see what it would be like, and then decided it would be too much and backed out.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

He's barely above 50% right now actually.

As for the Dems, I applaud them for even playing nice in the first place. I expected them to be abusing their filibusterproof majority from the start. It's going to be interesting to see what gets passed when the GoP has no say in anything.

No. In the very article you linked, it clearly stated that he said that he'd oppose any bill that did not have wide Republican support. You kinda can't call a bill "bipartisan" if the majority of either party opposes it. Think about that...



Yes. Because they were actually allowing Republicans to influence the language of the bill before this. Can we all agree that the "bipartisan" nature of this bill was in word only? The Democrats refused to remove something which has *nothing* to do with what most people want reformed, but which is a deal-breaker for Republicans. That's the public option.

Most people just want providers to not be able to drop them for pre-existing conditions, and to have their coverage move with them when they move jobs or states. Almost no body wants a public option, yet the Dems have latched onto that like a crazed dog, and are completely unwilling to drop the issue. That's why no bipartisan agreement can be reached. It's not the Republicans unwilling to deal on health care. It's the Democrats.



There's a reason why the Dems attempted first to do this while appearing to make it bipartisan. They know that "going it alone" will kill them politically. This is their last choice. We'll see if political survival of the Dems in Congress outweighs their long term ideological objectives here. I have a feeling it will, but you never know...

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 1:22pm by gbaji

Thank you, Gbaji, for Godwin'ing the thread already. I didn't think I'd see "Obama is HITLER! Dems are *****!" from you! You never stop surprising me.

Edited, Aug 19th 2009 4:35pm by LockeColeMA

The conservative trolls have long since given up trying to find what the dems actually resemble and have resorted to name calling (communist! socialist! fascist!) while it is painfully obvious that a good many of them don't even know what those things are.

Must... Resist... Gah!


National Socialist Workers Party

Gbaji, you do realize that even though that's what the ***** called themselves, they were actually not socialists, but fascists?

Just like the People's Republic of China isn't really a republic, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - aka North Korea - is anything but a democracy.

No, Pelosi called them "astro-turf activists." Aka, artificial. Many of them are being organized not by the Republican part itself, but by lobbyist firms for the insurance industry pretending to be conservative groups.

This becomes painfully obvious when many of the angry, hateful town-hall teabaggers demonstrate absolutely no ******* clue what they are talking about.

"KEEP YOUR HANDS OF MY MEDICARE! NO MORE GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT!" that sort of thing.

You got that backwards, Sparky.

This is Rham's fault. It really is. I'd say he has a job for about 6 more months, maybe 7 if he's lucky.

I sort of regret I don't work in government anymore so I can't shout "dead man walkin" anytime I see him.