Merry Christmas from the White House.
In keeping with the spirit of the season, the administration's designated attack dog Dan Pfeiffer accused the GOP of standing in the way of "progress" and claims the Baucus bill accepted 150 Republican amendments:
Contrary to what one Republican Senator said today, Democrats did not "do the HELP Committee bill completely Democrat" without "even ask[ing] one Republican opinion." In fact, they accepted more than 150 Republican amendments. In putting together the Finance Committee bill, Senator Baucus held months of bipartisan discussions. The Committee held a day-long bipartisan health care summit, convened three bipartisan roundtables, and even issued three bipartisan policy papers laying out the options from which the Committee chose to craft its bill.
Once the bill hit the Senate floor, Republicans passed up the chance to offer constructive amendments. Instead they chose to obstruct votes and offer six separate motions to essentially start from scratch.
The sad truth is that Congressional Republican leaders decided early on that their best move was to "delay, define, and derail" reform - not to find common ground on a bill both parties could support. They made clear their hopes that health insurance reform would be President Obama's "Waterloo" and that it would "break him" politically.
In the process, they lost sight of the fact that this was never about President Obama - it was about the families struggling to keep up with skyrocketing premiums; the small businesses forced to choose covering employees and staying afloat; the 15,000 Americans who lost insurance every day this year. Today's vote was a victory for them.
Pfeiffer conveniently forgets to mention that most of the Baucus bill is on the cloakroom floor, a victim of the "manager's amendment" that didn't accept most of the common sense proposals offered in the Finance committee version.
And I suppose since they have no principles at the White House to stand on - sacrificing substance for process in wheeling and dealing with several members - Pfeiffer has a difficult time recognizing and respecting the fact that much of what is in this bill is an anathema to the principles and philosophy of the Republican party.
For the Democrats, this was never about "reform" despite Pfeifer's maudlin and syrupy invocations of helping "the people." This was always about aggrandizing power to the government and giving Obama a political triumph - the cost of the bill be damned, and to hell with how the bill will wreak havoc on health care in America.
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