(Untitled)

[shreena]

I'm deeply confused.  Insofar as Obama said anything concrete when he was running for president, he said he was going to reform the US healthcare system.  So, he has a mandate to do it and a large majority. So, why doesn't he just do it?  Why does he even care that he doesn't have cross-party support?  Seriously, I am totally lost here.

Comments

[beingjdc]

Surely he doesn't have a forcing majority in the Senate if any Democrats vote against him (which a number of them would if it's not got some bipartisan support).

[shreena]

But why would they do that? The Republicans didn't vote against Bush if the Democrats didn't support something he wanted, did they? (genuine question) You're from different parties because you disagree so why should that disagreement affect what you do when you're in government?

[kathrid]

The republican senators probably did vote against Bush if they didn't want his ideas put through. The difference is that Bush largely avoided doing anything to the USA that was controversial. His controversy was largely centred on foreign policy which senators are less prone to rejecting because their voters aren't affected.

Obama is attempting to do something very left-wing (in american terms) with the health reforms, so much so that many of the senators who rely on centrist voters to stay in are worried that supporting it will see them loose their jobs come the next senatorial elections. A large majority can quickly disappear if the centrist democrats and republicans are all unlikely to back you.

[beingjdc]

Because parties aren't very rigid in the US, and there is a big group of Democrats who oppose increases in public spending.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/12/senate-blug-dog-coalition/

[gonzo21]

As I understand it a large chunk of his own party don't support him either. THere's some prominent Democrats who will vote against healthcare reform because they're very much in the pockets of the health insurance companies.

Including one particular Democratic senator who is chairman of some board, who keeps blocking healthcare reform because haliburton or somebody pay for his elections.

[smhwpf]

You need 60 votes in the Senate to get a closure motion through to force a motion to a vote in the face of a filibuster. The lily-livered Dems never seemed to use that to stop Bush when the GOP had a (sub-60) majority, but of course the GOP have no qualms.

There are now exactly 60 Dem Senators, since Al Franken was finally sworn in and after Arlen Specter defected from the GOP. But some of them are, as gonzo21 says, in the pocket of the big Pharma companies, or at least get some big payments from them. I get the impression that there are 60 votes or more for some sort of healthcare package (possibly including the ever-diminishing band of moderate GOPs, apparently now at most Olympia Snowe and one other), but not for a package including the 'public option', that is a government-run insurance scheme for those who want it. There might be a majority for it, but not the 60

[detroitfather]

He knows that government-run health care will be a disaster, and therefore he desperately needs to be able to say (after it has been seen to be a disaster) that it was a "bipartisan effort."