Obama and Democrats Vow To Rahm Through Socialized Medicine

Obama to spell out new healthcare plan
WASHINGTON
Reuters
Barack Obama is expected to publish his healthcare plan as early as Sunday or Monday, combining features of the two Democratic bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, congressional aides and healthcare advocates said on Friday.
The administration’s bill will aim to jump-start the stalled healthcare overhaul and comes just days ahead of a planned televised White House summit with congressional Republicans, who are calling on Democrats to scrap the bills and start over with a far less sweeping proposal.
Democrats are struggling to push healthcare legislation over the finish line in the face of sagging public support and solid Republican opposition bolstered by recent election victories in Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey.
The legislation the White House will post on its website is expected to reflect common ground negotiated over the past several weeks by House and Senate Democratic leaders.
Those agreements are likely to be combined as a privileged budget reconciliation bill, which only needs a simple 51-vote majority to pass the 100-member Senate instead of the 60-vote supermajority that has become routine in the Senate and gives Republicans power to block the healthcare bill.

“I believe that’s the path we are going to take,” a senior congressional Democratic aide said.

But it is not clear, even to congressional Democrats, what the White House will include in its legislation and whether Obama will try to add proposals aimed at attracting at least some Republican support.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have not signed off on any final agreement, several Democratic aides have said.

“We are still waiting for the president to present to Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi his plan,” a Democratic leadership aide told Reuters.

Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers, said the president would post his draft healthcare bill on the Internet in “the next couple of days.”

“The president is going to craft what he thinks is a good bill. It’s not going to be a perfect bill but it’s going to be a good bill,” she said at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

FACE-OFF WITH REPUBLICANS

A move to use the budget reconciliation process would fuel Republican opposition even as Obama has called for more bipartisanship in the process.

“If the president is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan fashion, he must take the reconciliation process — which will be used to jam through legislation that a majority of Americans do not want — off the table,” said Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican.

The Obama face-off with Republicans will give Democrats an opportunity to try to sell their plan to the public and explain why a sweeping, comprehensive proposal is needed instead of the go slow, step-by-step approach advocated by Republicans.

At a campaign event on Friday for Reid in Nevada, Obama blasted Republicans for opposing his healthcare overhaul. “The Republicans say that they’ve got a better way of doing it. So, I want them to put it on the table,” he said.

“We’re going to move forward the Democratic proposal — we hope the Republicans have one too,” Obama said. “And we’ll sit down and let’s hammer it out. We’ll go section by section. America can’t solve our economic problems unless we tackle some of these structural problems.”

.

Obama to Offer Health Bill to Ease Impasse (use reconciliation) as Bipartisan Meeting Approaches
NY Times

Democratic officials said the president’s proposal was being written so that it could be attached to a budget bill as a way of averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The procedure, known as budget reconciliation, would let Democrats advance the bill with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote supermajority.

“It will be a reconciliation bill,” one Democratic aide said. “If Republicans don’t come with any substantial offers, this is what we would do.”

.

Obama’s Own Healthcare Proposal Readied for Launch
Newsmax
The White House signaled that an aggressive, all-Democratic strategy for overhauling the nation’s healthcare system remains a serious option, even as President Barack Obama invites Republicans to next week’s televised summit to seek possible compromises.
~snipet ~
The administration’s stance could set the stage for a political showdown, with Democrats struggling to enact the president’s top domestic priority and Republicans trying to block what many conservatives see as government overreach.
It’s unclear whether the House or Senate can muster the necessary votes. Democrats, who hold 255 of the House’s 435 seats, drew only one GOP ally when the House passed its healthcare bill, 220-215, in November. Since then, one Democrat who voted for the bill has resigned, one has died, and a third plans to leave office Feb. 28. Moreover, changes meant to meet Senate demands could peel away enough liberals on one end, and party centrists on the other, to cause the revised bill to fail.
In the Senate, Democrats control 59 seats, and reconciliation rules require only a simple majority. But several Democratic senators have expressed discomfort or outright opposition to using the rules to thwart filibusters on healthcare.
The cost of the legislation — about $1 trillion over 10 years — would be paid for through Medicare cuts and a series of tax increases. House officials said Democratic leaders are not yet pressing wary colleagues to back a healthcare bill under the special procedural rules. That could happen soon, however, if next week’s summit fails to produce a bipartisan breakthrough.

.

UPDATE on when Obama will announce it at White House website:
FOX News
The president’s proposal, which is still being written, will be posted on the Internet by Monday morning, senior administration officials and Congressional aides told the New York Times.
By piggybacking the legislation onto a budget bill, Democrats would be able to advance the bill with a simple majority of just 51 votes, averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

One Capitol Hill Democrat told the Times abortion remains “a wild card.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday that Obama plans to have a health proposal that “will take some of the best ideas and put them into a framework” ahead of the Feb. 25 summit.
Obama has said he is open to Republican ideas for changing the health care system. But many Democrats seriously doubt GOP leaders will support compromises that could draw enough lawmakers from both parties to create a bipartisan majority.
If next week’s meeting does not break the logjam, congressional Democrats will face a tough choice. They can pass a highly diluted health care bill or nothing at all, which would send them into the November elections with a high-profile failure despite their control of Congress and the White House.
Or they can use the aggressive and contentious tactic, known as reconciliation, to pass a far-reaching health care bill in the Senate without having to face the GOP. Democrats lost their ability to block filibusters when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won a Senate seat last month.

.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
President Obama will put forward comprehensive health care legislation .
Since when does the president write legislation?
How many times do the American people have to say NO to get these idiots in DC to listen? Obama is an an economic suicide bomber.
This is purposeful destruction of America brought to us by Obama and the democrats. They are worse then the terrorists, we can shoot the terrorists.
Another manipulative ploy by the Socialist deceiver. We can never underestimate Evil, and the lengths it will go to.
Pray for the Republic.

….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67

.

….Thank you Richard for sending this to me.