Video: Obama Ready to Go Partisan on Health Care

Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet at 6:19 AM on September 1, 2009.

There's a reason we've yet to have a health-care bill: it's called the Senate Finance Committee. And two of the six negotiators on that committee have spent the congressional summer recess actively trashing the health-care plans of Democrats -- advancing outright lies about them. At last it seems, the White House is ready to say, "Enough is enough."

Finance Committee Chair Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has been negotiating his bill with a group known as the Gang of Six, which includes the Republicans Charles Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming.

Progressives have been scratching their heads, marveling at the White House's kind words about Grassley as he tramps around his state, a copy of Glenn Beck's book in his hands, spreading lies about "death panels." And Enzi's done no better.

Yesterday, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein reported on a fundraising letter sent by Grassley to consitutents, in which he promises to to defeat "Obama-care" and continues to mischaracterize legislative proposals:

I had to rush you this Air-Gram today to set the record straight on my firm and unwavering opposition to government-run health care.

And ask your immediate support in helping me defeat "Obama-care."

I'm sure you've been following this issue closely. If the legislation sponsored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Chairman Ted Kennedy in the Senate is passed it would be a pathway to a government takeover of the health care svstem. lt would turn over control of your health care decisions to a federal bureaucrat ... and take it away from you and your personal physician.

It would mean government rationing in the name of cost controls.

Enzi, delivering the Republicans' weekly radio address this weekend, chimed in, Klein reports, saying that the Democrats' health-care plan for promotes "the rationing of [America's] health care."



It seems that after weeks of trying to negotiate with these dishonest brokers, the White House has finally seen the light, and is ready to break its co-dependent relationship with these obstructionists.

From Bloomberg:

"I think Senator Enzi's clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship and decided that it's time to walk away from the table," Gibbs said at a White House briefing, adding, "It doesn't help to have Republicans who say they're for bipartisanship, and say they're at the table to try to find a solution, repeating Republican Party talking points about what they know is not true in the bill."

Tagged as: max baucus, health care reform, charles grassley, mike enzi, robert gibbs, gang of six

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington bureau chief.