AP: Obama’s not going for reconciliation, but simple approval of the Senate bill by the House

Jeffrey Anderson writes at NRO:

As the Associated Press reports, President Obama is now running a full-court press to try to get House Democrats to pass the Senate version of Obamacare within the next ten days. The president is leaving for Indonesia and Australia on March 18, and he wants the House to pass his proposed $2.5 trillion, 2,700-page overhaul of our nation’s health-care system in time for him to sign it into law before he boards the plane. [LA replies: But according to today’s New York Times, Obama is trying “to push the legislation through a final series of votes in Congress in the next several weeks”—not the next ten days. So which is it?]

The president is also imploring Americans to “Make your voice heard.” Never has he given such sound advice.

The health-care debate has now come down to this: Can one man’s desires prevail over those of 150,000,000 Americans (the difference between the roughly 225 million who oppose Obamacare and the roughly 75 million who support it)? Can one man—through coercion, threats, and payoffs—prove to be more persuasive to individual Democratic members of Congress than the collective voice of their constituents—expressed through calls, letters, rallies, and marches? …

We face an opponent who is fiercely driven by thoughts of personal glory and ideological zeal to make every effort to consolidate and centralize power in Washington under his control. In defense of liberty and fiscal responsibility, we need to match every ounce of our opponent’s perseverance.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 09, 2010 11:13 AM | Send