Posted on 12/14/2009 9:29:49 AM PST by IrishMike
On Thursday, it will have been 132 days since Congress broke President Obama's August deadline for a final version of his health care plan. That will be exactly twice as long as the time the president gave lawmakers to get the job done when he set the deadline back on June 2.
Old political hands knew better than to take Obama seriously when he called for his national health plan to be completed before Congress left for its August recess on Aug. 7.
But as he said, it's setting deadlines that's important, not meeting them.
Deadlines, Obama explained, help end the "hand-wringing" that dominated Washington before his arrival. Even if the clock ran out on his plan this summer, he had created some much-needed pressure.
"Now, if there are no deadlines, nothing gets done in this town. If somebody comes to me and says, it's basically done; it's going to spill over by a few days or a week -- you know, that's different," was how Obama put it to Jim Lehrer in mid-July.
It's actually been 18 weeks and three days since the Senate left for its August break, and Majority Leader Harry Reid's caucus is in a state of greater disunity now than when Obama was shrugging off missing a deadline because the agreement was imminent.
Except for a few bubbles of optimism when Democrats quit talking about the details of health care and focused on how sweet it would be to score such a big win over Republicans, we've seen the Super Bowl of hand-wringing in Washington.
There has not been meaningful debate or useful discussion, but rather the same baloney being sliced in different ways. There is still no consensus on how to expand coverage or how to pay for it....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
He wants this done for the State of the Union....
Another nite to watch the Cartoon channel!
Sudden-death?
yeah....the soviet union
appropriate during football season........
Joe Lieberman thinks the Medicare plan may be even worse than a public option for wrecking the private insurance system and believes it will be even more of a budget disaster.
Meanwhile, anti-abortion Democrats in the Senate say they cant go along with the plan.
Obamacare needs end of life counseling.
Maybe they need a sudden-death panel
Meanwhile, McCain "leads" the corporate GOP elephant charge against Democrats destroying MediCare in defense of "seniors," thereby saving his skin in an Arizona loaded with retirees.
The "compromise solution"? Expand MediCare. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Our response? The only one I can think of is to stop trying to save one type of socialized medicine as a tactic to preclude another while we do everything we can to support JD Hayworth as a sign to McCain that it won't work.
Why would they let abortion keep them from being able to pass this abortion? Was it intended to be a poison pill to keep them from having to pass anything all along? Are they all simply sitting around partying and watching TV during all these “tough negotiating sessions?” The world wonders.
I pray daily for the defeat of this bill.
Me too, along with my ladies’ prayer group. I propose a huge nationwide party if this thing flubs. I will be the first to give God the glory.
But as he (Obama) said, it's setting deadlines that's important, not meeting them.Okay, gotcha.
fricken communist!
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