Say Anything Blog

This is really, really bad for the liberals and their health care agenda.

After a tough week on health care reform, President Barack Obama used a hastily convened White House appearance Friday to press Congress to step up the pace, saying once again that “now is the not the time to slow down.”
Obama also tried to quiet naysayers with a bold prediction that he would sign a bill by year’s end, despite the frequent setbacks.

“That is why those who are betting against this happening this year are badly mistaken,” Obama said. “We are going to get this done. We will reform health care. It will happen this year. I’m absolutely convinced of that.”

At the same time, Obama did not reiterate his August deadline for the House and Senate to pass bills – amid growing signs in the Senate that goal is simply out of reach.

If they can’t get it done by August that gives Americans another whole month to learn that the Democrats intend to save them money on health care by taxing them more for government health care and then controlling their access to it.  And we’ll move another month closer to the beginning of the mid-term election cycle, which we’re already on the cusp of.  Self-styled ,oderate Democrats who are already having a tough time getting on board with government health care now aren’t likely to want to come down off the fence during a re-election campaign.  And once the mid-terms are over and Congress is back in session Obama is going to be staring down the barrel of his own re-election campaign.

And barring some miraculous economic turn-around (bloody unlikely) he’s unlikely to have the political capital left for a health care push.  Or even the will to make that push, given that he’ll need to focus on not being another Jimmy Carter.

So we can kill government health care now, I think, for the remainder of Obama’s term just by gumming up the works and waiting the Democrats out.  And even if Obama gets re-elected, I don’t think the mid-terms are going to be nice to the Democrats.  And the fact that they couldn’t get government health care pushed through even a Congress where they hold majorities in both houses - a 60 vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate - will be a powerful rhetorical tool against any future attempts.