Jul 17 2009
Senate Centrists Derail Obamacare
Just as when senate centrists defused the useless judicial appointment showdown between the partisans under President Bush with the Gang of 14, we can all now thank senate centrists for derailing the liberal rush to destroy our health care system because the new Gang of 6 have stopped the thing in its tracks:
A bipartisan group of centrist and conservative senators sent a letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders on Friday urging delay in consideration of health care reform.
The letter, obtained by the Huffington Post, was drafted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and is also signed by Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.). Independent Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who caucuses with Democrats, signed on, as did Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — moderates heavily courted by President Obama.
The organized effort to slow down the process is a blow to the reform effort. Obama has pushed hard for a final vote before the August recess, arguing that delaying until September could slow momentum and risk missing a historic opportunity.
A delay to September will kill it in its current form. As far as I am concerned the government better keep their damn, greedy hands off my healthcare. At least now I can relax on this matter for the rest of the summer. Here’s the letter itself. Basically it was the CBO’s shot across the bow of the liberal congressional leaders which was, as I suspected it would be, the final straw.
Update: Now 21 freshmen dems (who also must be centrists) are revolting against Pelosi in the house:
Twenty-one freshman Democratic House members have signed a letter opposing their leadership’s plan to raise taxes to finance a healthcare overhaul.
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) circulated the letter, saying that the income surtax on the wealthy would place an undue burden on small businesses, some of which pay taxes in the same way as an individual. The letter had 22 signers, all freshmen except for Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), who is in his second term.
Seems one good thing came out of the liberals’ failure on job creation – no one has the stomach to see them do the same to health care.
You and your wife have my sympathies, Alert. The people that so adamently support Obama’s plan- like the posters on HuffPo, don’t seem to care about all the horror stories we hear about Canada’s system, or the UK’s NHS. Waiting months for an appointment or for a necessary operation, sometimes dying as a result.
Thank you marksbb,
To make a comparison, my wife was diagnosed and 5 days later she started her chemo treatments. That included the results from the biopsy, the pet scans, getting one the the best oncologist in the country, a radiologist, a breast surgeon and three other doctor appointments. In Canada or the Brit system by the time she had all of this done the cancer would have progressed through her lymph system to other parts of her body and been terminal.
We are very thankful for our health care system! Sure, you can find hundreds of horror stories but there are thousands of those just like ours that are not being considered.
crosspatch:
Not only that, but social security has grown to take care of a lot of people who are not old at all. Disabled people and children were not supposed to be part of the deal either. And they did not start with the cost of living increases until decades after the plan was first created.
“Not only that, but social security has grown to take care of a lot of people who are not old at all.”
Not just that but people who do not even need it. I was raised in South Eastern Conn where they have two very large casinos. When we visit, my parents take my family to some of the great restaurants they have there in the casinos. I would say more then half the people gambling are retired seniors who are no doubt putting their Social Security earnings into the slots.
[…] again for many years, just like Reagan did with his center out coalition of Reagan Democrats. As I noted here, there are major cracks forming on the democrats’ side and a centrist coalition of Senators […]