Advocacy Groups Should Halt Attacks on Moderate Democrats, Obama Says – WaPo (7/4/09)
President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation.
In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to “true” health-care reform.
“We shouldn’t be focusing resources on each other,” Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. “We ought to be focused on winning this debate.”
The debate is entirely between Democrats, “each other” in Obama-speak. Republicans fear-mongering and will likely vote no down the line as they have on almost every bill this year. They have nothing to add, and their numbers make them wholly irrelevant. Democracy for America and MoveOn entered this battle because certain Democrats have come out early and vocally against a public option for healthcare, a position that more or less endorses continued insurance company privateering. It is diametrically opposed to the interests of an overwhelming majority of Americans, and almost all Democrats. But Obama doesn’t want to hear it because compromise and political cover for idiots like Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu is more important than truly universal healthcare.
Specifically, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations that worked on his behalf in the presidential campaign will now rally support for “advancing legislation” that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system.
Left-leaning organizations are pissed because Obama isn’t doing anything left-leaning. He’s going out of his way not to. Note how “universal healthcare” has morphed into “expanding coverage.” More than 40 million Americans don’t have health insurance. People are losing their jobs (and with it employer-sponsored insurance) every day. Even those with insurance often find it doesn’t protect them:
Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.
The current system is completely broken. There’s nothing about it that works. Yet some Democratic Senators want to prolong it, mostly because they take millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the insurance companies. And Obama would rather the racket continue:
A fundraising video produced by Democracy for America suggests Landrieu is a “sellout” because she has received $1.6 million in campaign contributions from the health-care industry…
I was about outraged-out until I saw this:
The goal of the Obama White House is to come up with a health-care plan that can attract bipartisan support. The president has told visitors that he would rather have 70 votes in the Senate for a bill that gives him 85 percent of what he wants rather than a 100 percent satisfactory bill that passes 52 to 48.
This is insane, indefensible, unbelievable. People are going to continue to go uninsured and underinsured because your President is delusional, and playing ego games with peoples’ lives. He’s never going to get 70 votes, and if he keeps playing this ridiculous game of indulging corrupt members of his own party, he’s not even going to get the 85% of what he wants. And since Obama doesn’t want single-payer, that 85% starts off mighty low on the curve.
But he’s not John McCain, so it’s all good, right?