Obama Desperate for GOP Help on Healthcare

Looks like Obama has finally figured out that he can't stampede enough Democrats to support his vision of nationalized medicine and will now have to beg for GOP support:

President Obama and some Democratic congressional leaders had pledged to involve Republicans in health care reform negotiations, but it is looking increasingly likely that bipartisanship will be among the casualties of the rush to approve a bill.

Obama told Congress on Friday not to "lose heart" in moving quickly to hammer out legislation that would check rising health care costs and cover millions of uninsured Americans without adding to the federal deficit.

But Republican proposals have gone nowhere in Congress, and the GOP isn't signing on to the Democrats' proposals -- and that didn't stop Obama from heralding "unprecedented progress."

Three of the five congressional committees working on health care legislation passed their versions of the Democratic plan this week without winning over a single Republican vote. The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Finance Committee are still discussing the proposals.

Democrats facing tough re-election bids or representing conservative districts are demanding additional measures to hold down costs. They have been unnerved by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office declaring that the legislation taking shape so far would not prevent federal spending on health care from rising.

Republicans have seized on those remarks as ammunition.

"When are Democrats going to admit that their claims about their government-run plan are pure fiction? Repeating the same disproven myths over and over again will not make them true," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

"Instead, Democrats should scrap their costly, job-destroying proposal and work with Republicans on a real plan to give Americans better access to affordable health care."

Obama has even taken to running ads against fellow Democrats who are not willing to support Obamacare. That's not a sign of confidence.

The problem is Obama decided to throw a 99 yard touchdown instead of making incremental gains toward his goal. If the problem is $45 million uninsured people, the first thing they should have done is try and address that problem (if it is one) rather than try to create this massive, expensive program that will destroy private insurance and throw nearly everyone (except congressmen and presidents) into a government-run plan.

Instead of solving the problem, Obama's plan creates new ones in the form of big deficits and tax surcharges, and according to CBO estimates it still won't insure everyone. Many will lose their existing plans, and others won't want to pay for any plan whether government or not. Those people can expect to receive huge fines.

The whole thing is an unqualified disaster.