The ‘conventional’ (by ‘conventional’ I mean the Beltway) wisdom seems to be that the
healthcare bill is dead. The media seems to think that the election of Scott Brown and the SOTU
indicates that healthcare reform is taking a back burner or being restructured or some such shit.
Then there is the
NY Times article that has the ominous headline that HC is “stalled” – and an even worse headline on the link to it at HuffPo that reads
“Rahm: Health Care on Back Burner.” However, when I read the article there is no quote from Rahm stating that health care reform is dead.
Here is where the article 'quotes' Rahm:
With Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul stalled on Capitol Hill, Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said in an interview that Democrats would try to act first on job creation, reducing the deficit and imposing tighter regulation on banks before returning to the health measure, the president’s top priority from last year.
How I read that paraphrase is simply that he will sign a jobs & financial reform bill before he signs a health care bill.
Obama has repeatedly said that he can do more than one thing at a time. Obama has repeatedly said that “everyday he focuses on the economy and on job creation” – even during the healthcare debate. Imagine that, a President who can
multi-task.Not only is health reform still very much alive, the bill might get a whole
hell of a lot better. Especially after Obama
took on the GOP at their retreat this morning.
Obama called the GOP out on their crap – even going so far as to remind them that the more that they demonize him and the Democrats, the harder that it will be for the GOP to support policies that the Dems put forth. They cannot even support policies that they might agree with. The stupid Pukes in the Senate even voted “no” on the pay-go rule yesterday. How they can say that they are “fiscally responsible” and vote “no” on pay-go is beyond me.
Health reform is an enormous jobs bill. Look at all of the potential jobs that will be created when 40 million more people have health insurance: doctors, nurses, health care billers, health care transcriptionists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, office staff, health care IT, construction workers (to build more clinics and hospitals), etc, etc, etc.
Millions of fucking jobs.Health care reform is not dead. It is now time for the Progressives to be louder than we have ever been. We need to
“scream bloody murder.” We need to call our Reps and ask them to
support the public option. We need to call our Senators. We need to call the Whitehouse. We need to tell them to use
reconciliation or do whatever is necessary to get it done.
We need to call and write and send letters to the editor and we need to be loud. It is time to march in the streets and raise holy hell.
Health care reform is a jobs bill. Health care reform is necessary for deficit reduction. Health care reform is a moral issue – the civil rights of our time. Health care reform
must be passed now.Cross posted at
PAS.
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