http://www.nationaljournal.com/cong...a-made-mistake-with-health-care-push-20120416 Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said he advised President Obama against taking up health care reform following a special election in 2010 that changed Democrats' fortunes in the Senate, saying that he should have instead turned his focus to financial reform. Frank referenced former President Bill Clinton and his failed health care plan from the 1990s. “Obama made the same mistake Clinton made,” Frank said in a wide-ranging interview with New York magazine. “When you try to extend health care to people who don’t have it, people who have it and are on the whole satisfied with it get nervous.” The outgoing representative from Massachusetts added that after Republican Scott Brown won former Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat, breaking Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority, Obama should have backed down: “I think we paid a terrible price for health care. I would not have pushed it as hard. As a matter of fact, after Scott Brown won, I suggested going back. I would have started with financial reform but certainly not health care," Frank said. He said that if the president had followed his advice, “you could have gotten some pieces of it.”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153902/Romney-Obama-Tight-Race-Gallup-Daily-Tracking-Begins.aspx Mitt Romney is supported by 47% of national registered voters and Barack Obama by 45% in the inaugural Gallup Daily tracking results from April 11-15. Both Obama and Romney are supported by 90% of their respective partisans.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politic...tart-packing-in-abc-news-exclusive-interview/ Romney Tells Obama to ‘Start Packing’ in ABC News Exclusive Interview
This is where Obama's aggressiveness hurt him. He had 8 years to work with and he could have gotten about 75% of his personal health care plans through if he had done so incrementally. I mean, who knows, maybe even eliminated non unionized health insurance companies all together as well as a national single payer health care entitlement program if he got extra lucky. He could have won a 'death by a thousand cuts' but chose for an illegal grand slam.
Barney Frank is right in one sense, wrong on the other. That health care legislation wasn't written overnight; it had been in someone's drawer for years. The Democrats were smart to recognize they had a brief window to push through legislation that may be unpopular in the short term, but changes the argument in their favor for generations to come. If you have to sacrifice a couple of elections, sobeit.
However, as it was illegal, this may come crashing down around them. Then we may see some real health care reform.
Don't assume: a) the mandate is unconstitutional; or b) that if the mandate is declared unconstitutional, that it's not severable. I haven't read the entire bill, but I've read enough to know that striking down Obamacare won't kill it. There are bureaucracies and rules created throughout government that will continue even if the law is struck down. This piece of legislation was really devious in the way it changes the relationship between the citizen and the government.
Of the 5 biggest polls, the Gallup Poll currently shows the most anti-Obama results for that question. What a coincidence. The born-again Christian George Gallup ALWAYS gets the most anti-Obama results. Another coincidence--after I have told you this 3 times, you still use only the Gallup Poll, time after time. Almost as if you want to slant threads with disinformation.
I used the most recent poll. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_...s-new-york-times-poll-finds/?tag=breakingnews CBS News has it dead even. Gallup and Rasmussen have it Romney +4.