firstread.msnbc.msn.com — NBC/WSJ poll finds that those believing Obama's health-reform plan is a good idea has sunk to its lowest level. Just 32% say it's a good idea, versus 47% who say it's a bad idea. In addition, a plurality prefers the status quo to reform. By a 44-41% margin, respondents say it would be better to keep the current system than to pass Obamacare.
Dec 16, 2009 View in Crawl 4
mnocketDec 16, 2009
This isn't about what the public wants. Never has been. It's no longer even about trying to pass a good reform bill. It's become simply about allowing Obama to claim victory at any cost. In this case the cost is enacting legislation that neither the Democrats nor Republicans think is good legislation - albeit for different reasons. Propping up poor legislation just so a president isn't further weakened isn't good for America, and I doubt it will be good for the Democrats in future elections.
hblaskDec 16, 2009
So now the Democrats have to decide: continue on their path of paying back to all the insurance lobbyists that wrote this bill, or listen to the American public.Which will they choose?
Closed AccountDec 17, 2009
Keith Olbermann recaps what the Insurance Industry is getting out of the Senate Bill.<a class="user" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677//vp/34455097#34455097" rel="nofollow">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677//vp/34455097#3 ...</a>This is NOT reform... Bill Maher was right. This is a 'blowjob to the Health Insurance Industry'.From Glenn Greenwald:<quote>Of all the posts I wrote this year, the one that produced the most vociferous email backlash -- easily -- was this one from August, which examined substantial evidence showing that, contrary to Obama's occasional public statements in support of a public option, the White House clearly intended from the start that the final health care reform bill would contain no such provision and was actively and privately participating in efforts to shape a final bill without it. From the start, assuaging the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries was a central preoccupation of the White House -- hence the deal negotiated in strict secrecy with Pharma to ban bulk price negotiations and drug reimportation, a blatant violation of both Obama's campaign positions on those issues and his promise to conduct all negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN). Indeed, Democrats led the way yesterday in killing drug re-importation, which they endlessly claimed to support back when they couldn't pass it. The administration wants not only to prevent industry money from funding an anti-health-care-reform campaign, but also wants to ensure that the Democratic Party -- rather than the GOP -- will continue to be the prime recipient of industry largesse.As was painfully predictable all along, the final bill will not have any form of public option, nor will it include the wildly popular expansion of Medicare coverage. Obama supporters are eager to depict the White House as nothing more than a helpless victim in all of this -- the President so deeply wanted a more progressive bill but was sadly thwarted in his noble efforts by those inhumane, corrupt Congressional "centrists." Right. The evidence was overwhelming from the start that the White House was not only indifferent, but opposed, to the provisions most important to progressives. The administration is getting the bill which they, more or less, wanted from the start -- the one that is a huge boon to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry.<end quote><a class="user" href="http://digg.com/political_opinion/Glenn_Greenwald_White_House_as_helpless_victim_on_healthcare" rel="nofollow">http://digg.com/political_opinion/Glenn_Greenwald_ ...</a>
Closed AccountDec 17, 2009
I should think that after the Wall Street bailouts that left the same people who destroyed our economy in power the answer to that question would be obvious.Not that the Republicans would have been one iota less sold out if they were still in power, but still.
waiting2awakeDec 17, 2009
it is almost like the are the same party or something huh?