While half of DU has been wetting their pants over Obama's speech and ignoring the implications of the actual content (mandated private insurance, a 'public option' that is not a public option and only is projected to enroll about 5% of the population & even that pathetic gesture being on the table to be dropped)...the Blue Dogs are digging in to dictate the legislation. Obama made a beautiful case for the REASON we need health reform, but his plan ultimately sucked. It has been surreal to watch a DU that for months has almost unanimously been joined behind either a STRONG public option or single payer, sing the praises of a speech that touted cuts to Medicare & Medicaid to subsidize a private insurance mandate.
People better stop getting all dewey eyed over the salesman, and pay attention to the actual policy being proposed, NOW. Private insurance mandates and billions cut to existing government health programs was not what Obama campaigned on, and it is a betrayal to the American people to try and force through a system that hinges on the entities that broke it in the first place.
WASHINGTON -- In many ways, President Barack Obama's address to Congress on Wednesday was aimed at lawmakers like Georgia Reps. Jim Marshall and Sanford Bishop -- fiscally conservative Democrats who represent rural enclaves and small towns in ideologically moderate to conservative Southern districts.
"In my opinion, the demographics of the Blue Dog Coalition reflect more accurately the demographics of the entire United States of America ," Bishop said. "Most Americans are centrists. Where I come from the values are God, country, family, work and guns, and not necessarily in that order."
During his speech Wednesday night, the president sought to assuage the concerns of the Blue Dogs -- a group of 52 moderate to conservative House Democrats from largely rural or small-town districts -- by highlighting the administration's goals of reigning in spending by eliminating Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Obama also reached out to centrists by scaling back proposed costs to $900 billion over 10 years -- some House estimates had put the plan at $1.2 trillion .
Obama also touched on medical liability reform and relaxed his stance on a government-run public health care option -- the so-called "public option" -- by highlighting the broader goal of insuring Americans as more important than offering a government-run plan. All are issues that, as Bishop put it, are "principles that are consistent with the Blue Dog principles."
MORE HERE.....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/3310750
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