Thread: Democrats Fleeing Obama Healthcare Plan

Well this news just seems to get worse and worse for this issue as the days go by. I have a feeling the president is not used to losing and will take this hard when this disaster plan goes down in flames.

Next project -CIR


Democrats Fleeing Obama Healthcare Plan

Sunday, June 21, 2009 1:55 PM




WASHINGTON -- A Republican senator seeking a bipartisan health deal spoke Sunday of "dialing down" expectations while one of President Barack Obama's Democratic allies questioned whether the White House had the votes necessary for a such a costly and comprehensive plan during a recession.

Obama's proposal to provide health insurance for some 50 million Americans who lack it has become a contentious point for a Democratic-controlled House and Senate struggling to reach a consensus Obama desperately wants.

Much of the concern came after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the plan would cost $1 trillion over 10 years but cover only about one-third of those now lacking health insurance.

Democrats protested that the estimate overlooked important money-savers to be added later. But Republicans seized on the costly projection and the bill's half-finished nature, throwing Democratic leaders on the defensive.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said officials would have to rethink their best-case scenario for providing a sweeping overhaul of the health care system at a relatively low price.

"So we're in the position of dialing down some of our expectations to get the costs down so that it's affordable and, most importantly, so that it's paid for because we can't go to the point where we are now of not paying for something when we have trillions of dollars of debt," said Grassley, R-Iowa.

"And we anticipate paying for it through some savings and Medicare, and from some increases in revenue," he said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she wasn't certain there are enough votes in the president's own party to support the proposal.

"I think there's a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus," she said.

The overhaul's chief proponent in the Senate, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, urged patience as lawmakers continued working on the bill. However, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the bill's cost was problematic.

"You do the math," McCain said. "It comes up to $3 trillion. And so far, we have no proposal for having to pay for it."

The CBO estimates "were a death blow to a government-run health care plan," Graham said. "The Finance Committee has abandoned that. We do need to deal with inflation in health care, private and public inflation, but we're not going to go down to the government-owning-health-care road in America and I think that's the story of this week. There's been a bipartisan rejection of that."

Competing plans abound in Congress, complicating Obama's task.

"As a matter of fact, I don't have the slightest idea what is in either of the two bills in the committees," said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. "None of us do because much of it hasn't been written, still being drafted. People are scoring something that doesn't exist. What I would suggest is we hang on now for a period of study so that we find literally what the alternatives are."

As for his favored outcome, "I think it should be incremental steps," Lugar said.

Health care changes have widespread public support, according to a CBS-New York Times poll released Saturday. Almost two-thirds say the government should guarantee health insurance for all Americans while half that many think it's not the government's responsibility.

People are more divided when it comes to such a program's impact on the economy and whether they are willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans have health care.

Feinstein, Lugar and Grassley spoke to CNN's "State of the Union." McCain appears on CBS' "Face the Nation" and Graham appeared on ABC's "This Week."

© 2009 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/us_hea ... 27539.html

The rest of the world is getting out of buying Treasury obligations, because they don't see how US workers are going to pay the interest when we have no jobs and pay no taxes, nor are we able to feed ourselves, nor buy nifty imports from China.
And that is enforced by the continual hiring of illegals, who send most of the money in remittances, and probably paid under the table, only pay sales taxes.
And I have no idea why my blood pressure pills keep going up about $4 per year. Profit for some private company perhaps? And there was a story on 60 Minutes years ago that sheep pills for farmers cost about 2 cents while the same formulation for humans cost about $2 per pill.