OBAMA'S SPEECH TO HOUSE DEMOCRATS RANKS AMONG MOST PRINCIPLED IN AMERICAN POLITICS

Henry Porter writes an interesting opinion piece on Pres. Barack Obama for The Guardian in which he says that Obama's speech to House Democrats on the eve of their historic vote on health care reform will go down as one of the best most-principled speeches in American politics.

Writes Porter:

"These days, when you hear so much from people about what, or who, they are going to vote against, while they complain bitterly that no politicians or set of policies match their particular requirements, it is worth listening to the words Barack Obama used to rally his Democrat troops before the health care vote last week. They represent the highest political endeavour and give the sense of a cause that remains just and noble despite all the compromises he had to make."

Republicans are foaming with anger over the very idea of health care reform, using words such as socialism, disaster, armageddon, budget buster. But Obama sees health care as the most pressing issue because it affects so many people and causes so much distress and misery when a person gets sick but does not have coverage.

Porter quotes from Obama's speech:

""Every once in a while," he said, "a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made in all those town meetings and all those constituency breakfasts and all that travelling through the district, all those people who you looked in the eye and you said, you know what, you're right, the system is not working for you and I'm going to make it a little bit better.

"And this is one of those moments. This is one of those times where you can honestly say to yourself, doggone it, this is exactly why I came here. This is why I got into politics. This is why I got into public service… we are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true.""

Health care reform is not some peripheral marginal subject for Obama. It goes to the very identity of the American people, the fabric of American society.

Porter comments:

"What a wonderful phrase that is about vindicating all your best hopes for yourself and the country. This is the finest of political aspirations and as a whole the speech tells you a lot about the tough commitment required from politicians and the public to make democracy work properly today. The speech will bookmark the history of his presidency and do what the proclamation on the emancipation of slaves did for the presidency of Abraham Lincoln in 1862, and the Civil Rights Act for Lyndon Johnson in 1964."

Now the health care reform bill as passed is far from perfect, but it is the first step towards revising and re-creating health care in the U.S. We still need a government-run option offering low-cost plans to those who wish. We need insurance covering Latinos, documented as well as those without proper papers. We need the ability to buy in to Medicare or Medicare for all.

But health care reform as passed by the Congress goes a long way to make health care a right of all Americans, getting rid of the foolish laissez faire idea that it is only a privilege.

NYT REPORTS SENATE DEMOCRATS NOW HAVE 60 VOTES FOR HEALTH CARE BILL

It looks like Senate Democrats have finally corralled Ben Nelson, senator from Nebraska, who has been holding out on health care reform.

Here's an article this morning from The New York Times website by Robert Pear, David M. Herszenhorn and Carl Hulse reporting on the breakthrough.

Write Pear, Herszenhorn and Hulse:

"As the Senate convened in a driving snowstorm, Democratic leaders said a breakthrough came when Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, agreed after 13 hours of negotiations on Friday to back the bill, making him the pivotal 60th vote.

"“Change is never easy, but change is what’s necessary in America,” Mr. Nelson said during a morning news conference. “And that’s why I intend to vote,” he said, “for health care reform.”"

But Republicans still feverishly oppose any health care reform and they seem intent to use Senate procedures to run out the clock before Christmas recess.

Report Pear, Herszenhorn and Hulse:

"The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, racing against the clock to complete the bill by his self-imposed holiday deadline, introduced a 338-page package of last-minute amendments, including the key provisions needed to win Mr. Nelson’s support.

"Republicans, who vowed to use every procedural weapon to stop the bill, immediately forced a reading of the Mr. Reid’s, which was expected to take 10 hours and had to be done by midnight to keep Democrats on track for a final vote on Christmas Eve."

Even Sen. Olympia Snow (R-Maine) seemed poised to vote against the bill even though she has shown that she is for health care reform overall.

The Senate is working through four consecutive weekends in an attempt to pass the bill by Christmas. Last night and today, the snow is falling heavily in the D.C. area. Report Pear, Herszenhorn and Hulse:

"The snow flying outside the Capitol added to what has already been a chaotic few weeks for the Senate, which has met every day since Nov. 30 and was convened for the third consecutive weekend.

"The sergeant-at-arms had four-wheel drive vehicles at the ready to bring senators in for votes. And while senators wore the jackets and ties required on the Senate floor, dress shoes gave way to snow boots. Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, who is 92 years old and uses a wheelchair, received an ovation from colleagues when he arrived in the chamber."

OBAMA SHOULD BE PROMOTING HEALTH CARE REFORM, NOT A FOOLISH WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

Instead of putting on a big show at West Point Military Academy this evening, in which he rehearsed and re-tread all of the Bush bromides on how "we have to kill them because they represent a 'serious' national security threat to America," I would have liked to see Pres. Barack Obama end a foolish purposeless war and concentrate instead on pushing health care reform in the Senate.

I find it dismaying that Obama has been relatively silent on health care. He should be out stumping for passage. He should be buttonholing reluctant and recalcitrant senators the way Lyndon Baines Johnson did. He should be arguing incessantly why health care reform is essential to future prosperity and peace.

But please, Mr. Obama, no justifying a baseless unjustified war in Afghanistan.

BLUE DOG JIM MATHESON (2ND CONG. DIST. UTAH) VOTES FOR STUPAK AMENDMENT, YET VOTES AGAINST HEALTH CARE BILL

Some Democrats voted no to the health care reform bill last night in the House. Yet they voted for the Stupak amendment barring insurance companies from paying for abortions.

One of those Democrats was Jim Matheson, Democrat from the Second Cong. District of Utah, who prides himself as being a Blue Dog and fiscal conservative.

If Matheson knew that he would not vote for the final bill, why did he vote to deny abortion? It is as if he just wanted to be obstructionist as possible regarding health care reform.

Consider Jim Matheson's other votes in the past: voting to pass the Bankruptcy Reform bill in 2005 making it much harder for debtors to file bankruptcy; voting for Bush's military authorization to take action in Iraq; voting for all of Bush's tax cuts; voting for the federal Defense of Marriage Act; voting against setting a date certain for pull-out of American forces from Iraq; and now voting against health care reform.

Let's take away Jim's congressional health care and see how he reacts if he or one of his family suffer a catastrophic illness. Will he consider personal bankruptcy in such a case? Will he call upon United Healthcare for more political donations so that he can pay for all the attendant medical and hospital care? Perhaps he will change his mind about health care reform. Maybe then he will have some sympathy for those financially unable to pay for health insurance.

HEALTH CARE REFORM SHOULD COVER ALL IMMIGRANTS

Rep. Joe Wilson Republican of South Carolina yelled you, "You lie," when Pres. Barack Obama said that the new health care reform bill would not cover "illegal immigrants."

Ann Gerhart and Philip Rucker write for today's The Washington Post on Wilson:

""We need to be discussing issues specifically to help the American people, and that would not include illegal aliens," Wilson said. "People who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health-care services."

"Despite many claims to the contrary by opponents of the universal health care proposals, fact-checkers have repeatedly established that the bills' universal coverage provisions would not extend to illegal immigrants. In Section 246 on page 143, the House's bill states that "undocumented aliens" will not be eligible for credits to help them buy health insurance -- and these credits are the provision that lies at the heart of expanding coverage to the uninsured. And Medicaid already is limited to those who can prove legal residency. For that matter, even the universal health care program in Massachusetts -- one of the most liberal states in the country -- does not cover illegal immigrants."

But why shouldn't it cover them? How can anybody deny health care to anyone else on the basis that the sick person lacks proper papers? Or that the sick person committed a misdemeanor by crossing the border without papers? Or that the sick person is a child of those who lack papers?

Yes, the health care reform bill should extend full benefits to immigrants, whether they are "legal" or not, whether they have proper documents or not.

SEN. JIM DE MINT (R-SC) THINKS HEALTH CARE IS ONLY A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT

Sen Jim DeMint, R-SC) does not think health care is a right, just a privilege. Thanks to Political Wire for pointing to the interview.

Robert Behre of the Charleston Post and Courier interviewed DeMint. Here's the reporter's question and DeMint's response:

"P&C: Do people have a right to health care? Describe where the government's obligation to provide a safety net ends and where a person's responsibility should begin.

"DeMint: I think health care is a privilege. I wouldn't call it a right. ... I do think in our country and in any civil society there should be a safety net for basic health and food and shelter, but that doesn't mean that the whole system should be designed around the belief that people can't make their own decisions, can't be responsible for themselves. ... What we do need to do is make sure everybody has access to policies they can afford, own and keep. We're not doing that. What we've done is set up the whole system to reward employers for offering health insurance, but we don't support people who don't get their insurance at work, and that's not fair."

Now it's hard to make sense of what DeMint is saying, but he clearly believes health care is a privilege and that no one in America has a right to it. So the people hit with catastrophic illnesses, the children paralyzed from accidents, the cancer patients, according to DeMint, none of them have a right to health care by virtue of being citizens of the United States.

So people still think like DeMint? If so, the United States is a dark place in which to dwell especially if you are sick. Is this what other Republicans think? Then the Republicans are meaner than I originally thought.

And what do these meanies make of the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution? It says that the people make the Constitution "in order to . . . secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our posterity." Surely we have here a basis to say that the "blessings of liberty" mean the freedom to not worry about securing adequate and affordable health care. If not, how does the government "promote the general welfare" and "establish justice?" I thus argue that health care is a right, not a mere privilege. Every citizen should be able to count on the government to provide medical treatment, cost of required prescription drugs, and hospital care.

SPEAKER PELOSI REBUTS SEN. MITCH MC CONNELL IN DEFAMING HEALTH CARE REFORM

I want to commend Speaker Nancy Pelosi for objecting to Sen. Mitch Mc Connell's silly but low arguments against the Democrats' health care reform bill.

James Rowley and Lorraine Woellert write in today's Bloomberg web page:

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ridiculed criticism by Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Democrats’ health-care plans, saying he’s echoing an insurance industry which makes “exorbitant profits” at the expense of Americans’ well being.

"The speaker said McConnell’s comment yesterday that the Democrats’ plan “means sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare” isn’t true."

It's really amazing to see what the Republicans like McConnell will do or say in their effort to stop a health care reform bill.

But remember, the Republicans have been trying to thwart important social legislation for at least the last 80 years. The Republicans called Social Security retirement income "socialistic," they said that Medicare was "socialized medicine," and now the Republicans call the health care reform bill that tries to extend health insurance to the 40+ million uninsured Americans an example of "socialism."

KUDLOW ET AL ON CNBC HATE OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE REFORM EVEN THOUG 40+ MILLION HAVE NO HEALTH INSURANCE

When I hear people on CNBC like Joe Kernen, Larry Kudlow, Dennis Kneale and Michellle Cabruso Cabrera rail against Obama's health plan, I wonder if they have any idea of what it is like to exist without any health insurance. They seem to think everything is rosy and bright. Sure, the Republicans in Congress and their supporters on CNBC already have health insurance provided by their employers.

Obama talks about empathy. No wonder it drives these Republicans bonkers as this is one quality lacking to their psyches. They have no sympathy whatsoever for people less forturnate financially than themselves.