Community | August 18, 2009 | 13 comments

Liberals press Senate Dems to move forward on reform without Grassley

source: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/liberals-press-senate-dems-to-move-without-grassley-2009...

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WakeUpPeople
Leading liberal activists are pressing Senate Democrats to forget about Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and move ahead with their own plans for healthcare reform.

Comprehensive healthcare reform legislation stalled in the Senate last month as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) spent weeks cooped up in his office with Grassley trying to hash out a healthcare deal.

Despite frequent assurances from Baucus that he was making good progress, the Senate left town for its monthlong August recess without any deal, breaking the deadline set by President Barack Obama for passing legislation through the upper chamber.

Baucus and other Democratic members of the Finance Committee plan to resume negotiations with Grassley when they return in September, but leaders among the party’s liberal wing say that path leads to a “dead end.”

“We need to push the Senate to move and pass a bill at a time when Sen. Grassley will probably not support any bill the Finance Committee has formulated,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future.

“We are encouraging Finance Committee members and Senate Democrats to do their own bill and not compromise with a bunch of Republicans who are not going to vote with them anyway.”

Grassley, the senior Republican on Finance, alarmed liberals when he announced in a television interview Monday that he would not support healthcare legislation that does not have widespread Republican support.
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13 comments // Liberals press Senate Dems to move forward on reform without Grassley

  • Marilynn_Murray
  • Marilynn_Murray
    • 0
      Marilynn_Murray  

    • ProgressNow Colorado
      Pledge to support a "public option" for health care
      Those of us who have insurance are seeing our premiums go up at twice the rate of wages, higher and higher deductibles, and shocking tactics by insurers to avoid paying claims. More and more employers are dropping insurance altogether because they just can't afford it any longer, adding to the ranks of nearly 50 million Americans who have no insurance.

      That's why polls show the vast majority of Americans support healthcare reform that includes a "public option" - public health insurance that would compete fairly with private insurance companies and offer consumers greater choice, expand coverage to more Americans, and ultimately lower healthcare costs.

      Congress and the President are seriously focused on healthcare reform for the first time in over fifteen years. We pledge our support for a robust public option for health insurance coverage.

      http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/s/0609healthcare?source=email08182009&am...

    • 2 years ago
  • Marilynn_Murray
    • 0
      Marilynn_Murray  

    • With his go along, get along to be bi-partisan people are starting to think he is a wimp. He needs to slap them soundly down before he has any thoughts about working with them. Has he forgot being sent to the damn basement to work, or getting the mic cut, or the lights turned off? Apparently there has to be some pay back before there can be any respect.

    • 2 years ago
  • WakeUpPeople
  • Marilynn_Murray
  • Marilynn_Murray
  • kennymotown
  • RFIDemocracy
  • Chique
  • kennymotown
  • Marilynn_Murray
  • WakeUpPeople
    • 0
      WakeUpPeople  

    • I guess some liberals are catching on that we're just spinning our wheels trying to get bipartisan support for health care reform. Don't they know that it takes a natural disaster or terrorist attack to get any sort of bipartisan support for anything? It would be nice if the GOP would recognize the fault in the private insurance industry for our current crisis, but instead they've decided to play politics and make an alliance with the enemy of their enemy.

      "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."
      ~Thomas Jefferson

    • 2 years ago
  • Marilynn_Murray
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