Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday abandoned plans for a vote on health care before Congress' August recess, dealing a blow to President Barack Obama's ambitious timetable to revamp the nation's $2.4 trillion system of medical care.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., delivered the official pronouncement, saying, "It's better to have a product based on quality and thoughtfulness rather than try to jam something through."
His words were a near-echo of Republicans who have criticized what they have called a rush to act on complex legislation that affects every American.
Obama shrugged off the delay.
"That's OK, I just want people to keep on working," Obama told a town hall meeting in Cleveland. "I want it done by the end of the year. I want it done by the fall."
Reid said the Senate Finance Committee will act on its portion of the bill before lawmakers' monthlong break. Reid then will merge that bill with separate legislation passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee earlier this month.
The process will be difficult since Finance, led by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is seeking a bipartisan deal while the health committee bill was passed by Democrats on a party-line vote.
Obama had pushed for votes in the House and Senate before August to ensure that lawmakers had enough time to meld the two bills into comprehensive legislation by December — before the start of a politically charged congressional election year.
Obama has made nearly daily appeals for the overhaul in the past two weeks and has summoned more than a dozen lawmakers to the White House to make his case. At stake is a massive remaking of the system. So is Obama's credibility.
Well, I don't know about that, except for the fact that the mainstream news organizations are going to make damn sure that it's spun as a question of Obama's credibility. What it IS demonstrating is the contempt that Obama's own party has for him.
This is starting to look like Clinton Redux -- someone who isn't from the Washington Insider's club is elected President, and his own party helps the Republicans to make sure he isn't re-elected. Some of this may just be a question of the refusal or the inability by nature of Democrats to fight back, except that we're seeing Democrats like insurance company shill Max Baucus and the equally on-the-take Blue Dogs fighting back against the President in their own party. I realize that the Democrats are more comfortable as a minority party, mewling in the corner about how the big mean Republicans are bullying them. But there are people's lives at stake here, and I frankly don't give a shit who's bullying them. If Harry Reid and the rest of these useless fucks didn't want to play hardball, they should go the fuck home and let someone take office who can -- and who will.
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