Healthcare

Why is President Barack Obama still willing to expend more wasted time and capital on trying to revive an already dead and buried healthcare bill?

His convening a live television summit on Feb. 25 where he has invited Republican leaders to join their Democratic counterparts at a White House meeting to discuss possible compromises on healthcare legislation is nothing less than a publicity stunt to further malign Republicans and satisfy his left-leaning base as to why healthcare has yet to pass.

I hate to break it to you. Next week’s healthcare summit is a public-relations show that won't lead to a bipartisan deal.



Republicans have been grappling with one big question. Why should they even go?

The conventional wisdom has always been that if the president invites you to attend a summit, you’ve got to go. And I think that still holds true.

The Republicans should probably go to this dog-and-pony show.

But that doesn't mean that they have to play the role of circus clown.

There are four themes they can stress that will help them gain higher ground. Read more...

Democrats should never have surrendered on single-payer health reform before the healthcare debate even began. Democrats should now fight for a strong bill, if needed by majority-vote procedures, and not do public-relations events only advocating a bill that is widely disliked by a majority of voters. On issue after issue on healthcare, the majority party is supported by a strong majority of Americans and an overwhelming majority of independents.

For obvious reasons, I have snow on my mind.

In between snow emergencies, I was walking to work yesterday down Pennsylvania Avenue, when I hit a predictably bad stretch of sidewalk. Except for one thing. This stretch of sidewalk was right in front of Chevy Chase Bank. For some reason, they didn’t bother to shovel their snow.

Chris Matthews made me crack under pressure yesterday on “Hardball” when he asked the question (incessantly, I might add), “Why didn’t Republicans pass a national healthcare plan when they had control of the Congress?”

I said, simply, like a tortured prisoner, “Because we don’t support government-run healthcare.”

He really got me. The left wing blog-world noted triumphantly that I spilled the beans. Read more...

No heart attack from digging out. That was a good thing, but there was little to do but spend the weekend mostly hunkered down inside. There were no newspapers, no delivery, but who missed them? We could read them just as easily online. And then, those of us who didn't lose power had plenty of TV to help pass the time.

As the anchors and frozen reporters repeated ad nauseam what we already knew, that it sucked outside, it would not have been much of a surprise to see a crawl at the top or bottom of the screen informing that the meeting of the Global Warming Action Group had been canceled. But the weather coverage was just one of the highlights.

At a press conference last October, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was asked: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

She replied with that wild-eyed self-assurance that grew more shrill and extreme as we got to Christmas: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

President Barack Obama wants us to know he doesn't quit, but his plea for healthcare reform last night wasn't so urgent. He made the case for it, to be sure, but he talked about waiting for temperatures to cool. Let's be clear, as Obama likes to say: The Democrats are out of time. Any pause for the cooling of temperatures means fewer votes for a bill.

Below are three big questions the president needs to answer in his State of the Union address. They all relate to long-term deficits. One of the questions addresses an actual way to fix the deficit. The other two are mere distractions.

1. Why is the spending freeze necessary?

President Barack Obama needs to explain why the spending freeze isn’t a gimmick to make it appear like he’s a budget hawk. Advocates of Obama’s agenda rightly believe a spending freeze is exactly the type of political gimmick the president would normally denounce. The White House is saying this isn’t an across-the-board freeze (meaning not every program will see a freeze). The president needs to provide concrete examples of programs worthy of a reduction and those worthy of an increase. He also needs to say why military procurement wasn’t included in the spending freeze. Also, why aren’t revenue measures included along with a spending freeze?