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Exclusive: Obama to include Republicans in hard-hitting convention

AdamT said:
I'd say the fact that the plan is based on a Republican plan produced by the Heritage Foundation and enacted by Mitt Romney counts as about a ton of *attempted* bipartisanship. Likewise, the jettisoning of the public option in a fruitless attempt to peel off even one or two Republicans. Unfortunately, like the Tango, it takes two to bipartisan.
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First...you're adapting a plan SIMILAR, but not exactly like, a plan that was put forward as a bipartisan version of a plan decades earlier.

Second...said plan was produced only after Obama could not actually get the plan he want passed through his own PARTY and there is no more legitimate argument to be made that the changes to his original comments on health care came about in an effort to reach out to Republicans any more than there is that he did it to reach out to his own party members that wouldn't go along with his own plan.

Third....in regards to the public option, see above. There is no more legitimate an argument that can be made that the action was taken in hopes of securing one or two Republican votes (So we're going off the definition that one or two votes makes "bipartisanship"?) then it was in hopes of getting his own party to give enough votes to get it passed.

So if that's bipartisanship, one could argue there's as much evidence that your definition of bipartisanship is taking action to accomodate moderate and right leaning members of your own party as it is to suggest bipartisanship is taking action to accommodate the other party.

I'm still eager to see the original posters definition of bipartisanship, not out of some desire to show that Obama isn't bipartisan but more to see how consistent his view regarding ideological location and bipartisanship is with other presidents of the past as well to determine if it's a legitimate statement or one made due to pure partisanship.
 
Redress said:
I was told this morning that one democrat signing onto a republican bill made it bipartisan.
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This is kind of the point I'm making. I've had people claim that...I've seen claims of other numbers...i've seen claims it's defined by what the person believes the intent of the person taking action is, etc etc.

Without a definition it's kind of hollow. And without being able to gauge a persons consistency with their definition by applying it to other people, it's difficult to see how legitimate it is.

The same goes for the whole notion of how to define one's lean...ideologically? Based on the final results of legislation? Based on the initial attempts regarding legislation? Based on ones statements concerning the pieces of final legislation they like/dislike? Etc.
 
roughdraft274 said:
Haha, of course.

The individual mandate was a republican idea that should have had absolutely no struggle getting though congress. Even people like Senator DeMint was a huge fan of it until Obama and the democrats liked it also ( DeMint on RomneyCare in 2007: ‘That’s something that I think we should do for the whole country’ - Daily Kos TV (beta) ). Not to mention that conservative organizations like the heritage foundation and leaders like Newt Gingrich have praised the idea fervently before the democrats tried to pass it. That right there, the fact that democrats took the very least aggressive approach to fixing health care (no single payer, no public option etc.) and that the exact same republicans who loved this idea before now screamed from the roof tops that it's a government take over of healthcare, should be enough evidence for anyone who the people were that would not go for bipartisanship.

Also, the idea that it was shoved down Republicans throats is laughable. It was passed with 60 votes in the senate after having the MOST EXTENSIVE COVERAGE that any bill has ever had as long as I've been alive and there's a good chance the most coverage ever. Along with that , the democrats in the House completely skipped over the deem and pass rule that they could have used to pass the reconciliation bill for health care in order to make it easier to pass, and instead just took a straight up or down vote on it.

I say this with 100% certainty. If we had a Republican president and a republican congress and they had proposed the exact same legislation, you would have 80% of conservatives on board right off the bat, and you would have major conservative leaders all over the airwaves praising the idea (just as the video of Jim Demint does) for being an amazing free market solution that makes people take responsibility for their own healthcare costs.
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AdamT said:
I'd say the fact that the plan is based on a Republican plan produced by the Heritage Foundation and enacted by Mitt Romney counts as about a ton of *attempted* bipartisanship. Likewise, the jettisoning of the public option in a fruitless attempt to peel off even one or two Republicans. Unfortunately, like the Tango, it takes two to bipartisan.
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Carleen said:
You do know that the ACA was a republican idea until Obama wanted it, right?
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99percenter said:
Obama made plenty of concessions on that. He dumped the public option and went with the GOP/Romney plan.
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Ya'll cannot have it both ways. This board is filled with those on the left who mock Romney for his unsuccessful Romneycare -- as does the Democratic Party.

Now you say it's based on Romneycare? And this is going to be Obama's legacy legislation? Give me a break.
 
I've never mocked the obama/romney national healthcare plan. Now i support single payer so this plan would be a huge concession for me. I would have at least liked a public option but its better than nothing which is what the GOP was proposing. They just want to sink obama's presidency. According to mcconnell their plan was to make obama a one term president.
 
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roughdraft274 said:
The only thing I used the daily kos for is to show a video. If you want to argue that they video is out of context, but don't be cowardly and act as though my entire argument rested upon something in the daily kos.

I don't read media matters. Go bark up another tree.

1. Ok, so socialism is ok only at the state level? How stupid do you sound right now, lol. Apparently the federal government is allowed if you'd care to actually read the supreme court ruling.

2. it wasn't killed by prominent conservatives. Regardless, there were people that actually sponsored the republican bill with an individual mandate in the clinton days, Sen. Grassley and Hatch for example, that voted against ObamaCare and it's individual mandate. The only reason for his switch? Politics.

Did you read your own source?
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Dodge noted. It's a fact that it was killed by prominent Conservatives at the time. You're a lying disingenuous hack.

So you post a source saying the difference between obamacare and there bill is that there's only imposed a tax on those that went without heath insurance rather than make an actual legal requirement (the exact same ****ing thing that obamecare does, jesus christ...) and that they really liked it because it would prevent hospitals or taxpayers from footing the bill from catastrophic injuries to the uninsured (one of the samd ****ing reasons that the individual mandate was passed in ObamaCare!). Read your source, it was the same thing, lol.

And this is my last response to you. I'm not going to go out of my way to educate someone that doesn't even read the sources that he posts, and lies about what I posted. You have fun now.
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It's your last response because you know you're not going to win this debate.

I can only sit back and laugh at your premise. Obamacare is a massive tax increase on the poor and middle class. Just because a few people at Heritage 20 years ago tried to come to some bi-partisan common ground by offering their own ideas (WHICH NEVER EVEN MADE IT OUT OF COMMITTEE AND WAS WITHDRAWN BY THE PERSON WHO INTRODUCED IT), doesn't mean their idea was good at the Federal level (and IMO even though it's legal, not that great at the state level) but that's the entire point and the one you dodged. Mandates at the state level are possible BY DESIGN. NOT at the Federal level which is why the Supreme Court ruled it was a MASSIVE TAX ON THE POOR AND MIDDLE CLASS. There was not universal support even at Heritage at the time, but here you are like a cult member, spewing a talking point without any context and you believe it's the truth.

I posted a source completely debunking your laughable talking points. Here let me give you another one:

Heritage and the Individual Mandate - Peter Ferrara - [page]

There I discovered the wonders of the Heritage health plan, devised to stop the Hillary health plan. Except that it followed the outlines of the Hillary plan far too closely. Worse, where it differed, it was destined to fail politically.

For example, the Hillary plan was based on an employer mandate, requiring employers to buy the health insurance plan for their workers the government specified they must buy. The Heritage plan was based on an individual mandate, requiring each worker to buy the health insurance plan the government specified they must buy. So the issue was framed as who should have to buy the health insurance, the employer as the Hillary plan required, or the worker, as the Heritage plan required. Not a winning issue for the Heritage plan.

Another key difference was that the health insurance plan Hillary would require the employer to buy would be a broad generous plan covering everything. But the health insurance plan Heritage would require the worker to buy would be a cheap bare bones basic plan. So the issue was framed as which do you want: broad, generous health coverage paid for by the employer, or cheap, bare bones coverage paid for by the worker? It seemed more like the Heritage plan was designed to fail politically.
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You have fun now
 
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I think it should be interesting what republicans they bring, the crowds response to the speech, the speeches itself.
 
From my Left Wing perspective (and that of most of my Left Wing friends) it certainly looked like Obama was giving away the farm trying to get Republicans on board, with something... with anything. It's the big reason most of us are not as 'fired up' about him as we were in '08.

It seems (to my admittedly biased eyes) that whenever I see Right Wing folks complaining about Obama not being willing to 'compromise' it boils down to them not getting everything they wanted... and even when they do get what they claimed they wanted they back up and put down a new list of demands. It ends up looking less like they really give a crap what issues get worked out and more that they keep Obama from getting anything done.
 
Bronson said:
Dodge noted. It's a fact that it was killed by prominent Conservatives at the time.
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The fact is that, ignoring the self-serving revisionist history, conservatives were lauding the Heritage plan as recently as one and two years ago. The head of the Heritage Foundation spoke at the celebration dinner on the occasion of the passage of Romneycare in Massachusettes and congratulated him on putting Heritage's ideas to work. Gingrich was pimping the mandate up until a few months ago on his health policy website. Chuck Grassley endorsed the mandate in 2009.

So nice try, but an epic fail.
 
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MaggieD said:
Bipartisanship? Please explain to me how the ACA showed one iota of bipartisanship. Does "shoving it down Republicans' throats because we can" ring a bell?
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Its the obama speak language. a couple RINOS are hardly proof of bipartisanship. Probably someone like Powell who votes race before party
 
it appears that Obama administration member Huntsman will speak on behalf of the great token. Huntsman has had a major hard on for Romney ever since Romney ran the olympic games. Huntsman wanted one of his sons to get the job and when Jr got turned down and Mitt did a bang up job, Huntsman has been seething in anger ever since.

then Mitt wiped the floor with Huntsman in the primaries-Huntsman couldn't even beat an ass clown like Rick Perry or a guy with more baggage than a Jerry springer game show-Newt
 
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