Progressives may be denied their overriding health care priority this time around, but according to President Barack Obama, it won’t be over with this bill.
Obama urged leading progressive Democrats in a closed-door meeting Thursday evening to back the health care bill, placating their concerns about the public option and warning them that the liberal agenda was at stake.
Obama told the group of House members he thought the public health insurance option didn’t have the votes this time, but reportedly assured them he’ll revisit it after the bill’s passage, warning that failure would imperil the issue for a generation.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said after the meeting that Obama’s message was, “If this opportunity passes, much of our agenda, on the progressive side…it would be difficult, if not impossible for a generation to get back to this issue,” according to .
“To maintain a strong presidency we need to pass this bill,” Grijalva summarized Obama’s remarks.
The congressman noted in a statement to reporters he was “encouraged” after Obama “personally committed to pursue a public option after passage of the current bill.”
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) added, “He encouraged us to understand that this is the beginning of health care reform, not the end of it — and that we will fix it later, as we have with Social Security and Medicare,” in an interview with The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent.
“He doesn’t believe the Senate has 51 votes for the public option,” Woolsey said. She added that Obama “thanked” the assembled, telling them their advocacy made the bill much stronger and that this wouldn’t be the end for health reform.
Grijalva and Woolsey, the two co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have lately withheld their support for the bill but sounded sold on it by last night.
Sargent reported that Woolsey said “she’s now a definite Yes on the Senate bill” even if it excludes the public option. The congresswoman last week told Raw Story that if the public option fails she would introduce it in a separate package soon after its enactment. ….
“It’s pretty compelling,” said Grijalva, who on Wednesday told Salon he’s leaning toward voting no, of Obama’s remarks.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Obama told them in the meeting that “31 million people will have health insurance as a result of this bill.”
* make health care more affordable for families, businesses, and individuals * make health insurers more accountable-no more denials for pre-existing conditions! * make the health system sustainable, stabilizing family budgets, the Federal budget, and the economy
Rep. Boccieri is hearing from the other side this week.
“President Barack Obama, making his first visit Thursday to Louisiana since becoming the nation’s 44th chief executive, told a spirited crowd at the University of New Orleans that he will help build a stronger Gulf Coast than the one Hurricane Katrina and broken levees wrecked four years ago.
“‘I promise you this — whether it’s me coming down here or my cabinet or other members of my administration — we will not forget about New Orleans,’ Obama said. ‘We are going to keep on working. Together, we will rebuild this region, and we will build it stronger than before.’
“Obama also used the four-hour visit, which also included a stop at the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School in the Lower 9th Ward, to praise the city’s spirit and its example for rest of the nation.
“‘I remember four years ago, right after the storm, a lot of people felt forgotten,’ he told hundreds of youngsters at the school. But now, he said, the campus represents progress in a neighborhood that became a symbol of the destruction.
“At UNO, Obama said, ‘It is always an inspiration to spend time with the men and women who have reminded the rest of us what it means to persevere in the face of tragedy and rebuild in the face of ruin. That’s the story of this recovery, your unbending resilience. That doesn’t start in Washington, that starts right here.’
“Yet considering that the White House billed the trip as the president’s opportunity to hear about and see for himself the city’s progress, and for all the subsequent criticism locally that his time on the ground was insufficient, the public forum was dominated by issues other than the hurricane recovery and protection.
“When the president called on raised hands among the 1,500 or so attendees who won tickets in an online lottery, he got one question about delayed FEMA reimbursements. The president used a question about the environment and global warming to mention coastal restoration, and he tied a question on education back to the King charter school and New Orleans’ overhaul of public education since the storm.” ….
The 9th Ward in New Orleans is symptomatic of those who have been excluded in Federal aid programs for the city, overall. In Dear Mr. President: Locals have wish list for Obama’s visit, NOLA.com, October 14, 2009, by Gordon Russell, some of the inequality in the rebuilding of New Orleans is presented. It is all very well to highlight progress of a charter school in the 9th Ward, but most of that area has not in any sense of the imagination seen any kind of full recovery.
It seems to me that I remember, four years ago, a decision was made that this area was too vulnerable and would not ever receive much funding to be rebuilt. But the people came back to the only world they ever knew, and did what they could to pick up the pieces and did TRY to rebuild. There had been talk of using authoritarian powers and preventing folks from rebuilding there. Instead, we see half-rebuilt houses and people living in terrible circumstances. These people are living in some kind of limbo because the government will not forcibly resettle them, yet will not, basically, help with rebuilding. Somebody needs to step up to the plate for these people. High flown speeches and a token charter school aren’t doing the job.
It does seem like, unlike the Bush administration’s response in the aftermath of Katrina, the inequality we now see in Federal and other programs for rebuilding poorer areas of the city (which are primarily in low-lying areas), have less to do with “haves and have nots,” and more to do with decisions that have been made as to areas which are too vulnerable to receive aid. These areas are being left to “wither on the vine.” In a second Katrina – which was a 500 year storm, while the New Orleans levees as currently constituted can only handle a 100 year storm – areas like the 9th Ward would again be submerged. A decision has been made to not much aid rebuilding here. But the area’s people suffer….
What is needed is a more creative, compassionate response for these people and others like them.
A different sort of example in New Orleans is “the site of of the old ‘Big Four’ housing complexes, which were torn down after the storm and still mostly awaiting renewal.” This is NOT a question of storm vulnerability. Here money is simply not being provided for low-income housing in an area which cries out for it. We see the same thing all over this nation. Low income housing is terribly neglected. There are billions for a smart energy grid, yet poor people suffer: it isn’t right, Mr. President.
As a nation, we need a more compassionate response to the suffering of low-income people. The only future they seem to have now, under Obama as before, is one of hunger, suffering and inadequate response. Is this the response of a Christian nation towards its less fortunate sons and daughters??…. We need a response “closer to the heart.”
Here is a video, full of promise, from BarackObama.com on August 27, 2007. Keep in mind, this was two years ago. The promise which candidate Obama made to New Orleans’ people remains mainly unfulfilled. (That’s not to say he’s not doing a better job than W. did – it’s a question of priorities, in my opinion, misplaced priorities.) Why is this happening? Because to the nation’s elite, to that upper one percent of movers and shakers, in reality, it just doesn’t matter that much. As a nation, we can and we must do better.
