Health Care: Obama's Waterloo?
There is something ironic about the British and the French warning the United States about universal health care. The U.K's representative to the European Union Daniel Hannan has done just that. Under the leadership of finance minister Anders Borg, Sweden is reversing its history of cradle to grave entitlements and universal health care as they move towards a more free market based system. I never thought in my lifetime that Sweden would be moving towards capitalism as we are moving away from it.
Obamacare is proving to be as divisive to this administration as the Iraq war was to Bush's. The president's goal of taking the health care bill to vote before August recess has gone up in smoke-primarily due to the lack of clarity in the bill. One may also blame the confusion amongst the democrats-the senate isn't exactly in love with the so called public option while the house won't do without it. The public outrage demonstrated at the townhall meetings has struck fear among many democratic senators who are up for re-election soon and may not support the pubic option. Will the president insist on the public option and risk alienating house Democrats?
It is likely that any health care bill that passes this fall will no doubt be a watered down version. If the bill is defeated it will certainly be a stain on the Obama's presidency- health care reform has been a cornerstone of his agenda. The president rode into office on the back of his sky high popularity and his brain trust decided strike the iron while it was hot. Now with the health care reform bill stalled and his poll numbers sinking, the administration is officially in crisis. What would a failure of the linchpin of his ambitious social agenda mean? See Napoleon.
Obamacare is proving to be as divisive to this administration as the Iraq war was to Bush's. The president's goal of taking the health care bill to vote before August recess has gone up in smoke-primarily due to the lack of clarity in the bill. One may also blame the confusion amongst the democrats-the senate isn't exactly in love with the so called public option while the house won't do without it. The public outrage demonstrated at the townhall meetings has struck fear among many democratic senators who are up for re-election soon and may not support the pubic option. Will the president insist on the public option and risk alienating house Democrats?
It is likely that any health care bill that passes this fall will no doubt be a watered down version. If the bill is defeated it will certainly be a stain on the Obama's presidency- health care reform has been a cornerstone of his agenda. The president rode into office on the back of his sky high popularity and his brain trust decided strike the iron while it was hot. Now with the health care reform bill stalled and his poll numbers sinking, the administration is officially in crisis. What would a failure of the linchpin of his ambitious social agenda mean? See Napoleon.
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