Thursday, February 25, 2010

What Americans Want

That title is a little loaded because I have no idea what Americans want anymore. In 2008 I was pretty sure that Americans wanted Change. And that Americans wanted comprehensive healthcare reform.

Now I’m not so sure.

Here is why.

Today’s Healthcare summit at the Blair House in DC pretty much went over like the proverbial lead balloon that we all were expecting. Republicans were adamant that they wanted to start all over even with the House and Senate versions of the bill both passed.

And now Democrats are once again talking about passing a bill on a 51-vote majority.

Reconciliation.

Here are some snippets of this conversation gleaned from MSNBC:

Harry Reid: “No one has talked about reconciliation but that's what you folks have talked about ever since that came out, as if it's something that has never been done before. Now, we as leaders here, the Speaker and I, have not talked about doing reconciliation as the only way out of all this. Of course it's not the only way out. But remember, since 1981 reconciliation has been used 21 times.”

Obama: “I do think [the American people] want a vote on how we're going to move this forward … A majority vote makes sense.”

Now I have to wonder about that last statement.

Because according to a Gallup poll just released, 52% of Americans oppose the use of reconciliation to pass healthcare reform.

From RTT News:

“According to the poll, which surveyed 1,009 adults on February 23, 52% of Americans oppose using reconciliation to pass health care reform compared to 39% who support it.”
Now does this mean a majority of Americans now don’t want healthcare reform? Because I read the news and it appears that the only path to passing healthcare reform any time soon is reconciliation.

But apparently, that’s not true.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 58% of all Americans would be disappointed or even angry if healthcare reform isn’t passed this year.

That’s the poll I wanted to look at. It’s here.

So bottom line, what do Americans want? Apparently they want healthcare reform, but they want the Republicans to give it to them also.

And that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in H-E-double hockey sticks of happening.

2 comments:

Marsha said...

Hal,


I want universal Health care passed. It is not for me or my family,I have Medicare and Blue Cross through my retirement and my kids are insured. I want it for all my neighbors who are not as fortunate as we are.

As a side item now I want Ms. Rogers to saddle up her space shuttle and fly back to her respective Planet (what ever & where ever it is) and leave us alone here in Texas to get good Democrat candidates elected without all her nonsense..

Anonymous said...

Ditto!
True that to the above comments!!!