It's About Time
Ezra Klein in the Washington Post:
"After Mike Enzi used the GOP's weekly radio to attack the Democrats' health-care plan for promoting "the rationing of [America's] health care," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs fired back that Enzi "clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship and decided that it's time to walk away from the table."
Everyone I've spoken to in the Senate believes, strongly, that this process is about to break down, and the Democrats are going to move forward on a more partisan basis."
And not a minute too soon. Despite his obligatory gestures toward bipartisanship, I never believed for a second that Obama thought that he would end up with Republican support for any meaningful health care reform.
Why do I believe that? Because you would have to be a brain-dead idiot to have watched the Republican party for the last several years, and think that they would participate in any way in legislation that had the single benefit that it would help the American people. And Obama is not an idiot.
It's time for the Democratic party to show what it stands for, and pass a real bill, without Republican support. Sure, its passage will be accompanied by tantrums the likes of which we have never seen; but this legislation will be remembered along with Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights act as among the shining moments of American government- brought to you, of course, by Democrats.
"After Mike Enzi used the GOP's weekly radio to attack the Democrats' health-care plan for promoting "the rationing of [America's] health care," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs fired back that Enzi "clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship and decided that it's time to walk away from the table."
Everyone I've spoken to in the Senate believes, strongly, that this process is about to break down, and the Democrats are going to move forward on a more partisan basis."
And not a minute too soon. Despite his obligatory gestures toward bipartisanship, I never believed for a second that Obama thought that he would end up with Republican support for any meaningful health care reform.
Why do I believe that? Because you would have to be a brain-dead idiot to have watched the Republican party for the last several years, and think that they would participate in any way in legislation that had the single benefit that it would help the American people. And Obama is not an idiot.
It's time for the Democratic party to show what it stands for, and pass a real bill, without Republican support. Sure, its passage will be accompanied by tantrums the likes of which we have never seen; but this legislation will be remembered along with Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights act as among the shining moments of American government- brought to you, of course, by Democrats.
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