So, all the Republicans have to do now, aside from prolonging the struggle as much as possible, is sit back and watch the Democrats make a disaster out of this health care effort. One way or the other, the Dems are going to lose on this one. The Repugs are going to gain political capital from it whether they're in the right or not.
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The current version of the Senate bill covers 30 million more people than are covered at present, has subsidies for low-income families, spreads the risk, lowers some premium costs, creates some exchanges where some people can shop for better coverage and prices. So, some say, don't be too hard on it.
Don't be too hard on Obama, either. He inherited a really difficult situation and we're making incremental progress. If we could've done better we would've.
One of the challenges facing any president is to transform the reality rather than just work within its parameters. The other problem is that those of us who consider ourselves progressives invested so much in this apparently remarkable figure, Barack Obama -- we read our own hopes into him, we saw him as a potentially great president. We saw this as a potentially transformative moment in history, in which he could've chosen to be the kind of president Roosevelt was. But as it turns out, that's not who he is. However, will a collapsing economy, and his therefore collapsing presidency, move him to become another FDR? We can only hope.
Problem is, if his health care bill goes down, the way the Republicans have framed this as a make-or-break moment for President Obama will make it easier for them to take control of Congress in 2010. Plus, it could very well make Obama even more gun-shy about promoting reform. It could well also create even more political paralysis because it might very well embolden the Republicans, still further, to block whatever this President is trying to do, at every turn.
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In its present form, this health care bill doesn't address the two biggest problems within the health care crisis.
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