Joe, I just looked for your book. I don't find a book by Bob Woodward on ObamaCare. If find two about the Obama era:JoeMemphis wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:07 pm You mention Obama and how he gave the Republicans everything they asked for. Except that wasn’t how it worked. Bob Woodward has a reputation for pissing both parties off. He wrote a book on that process. He interviewed everyone in the process. All the players. Checked, double checked, cross referenced. It doesn’t agree with your assessment. Offering to let you vote on their bill while not allowing amendments isn’t meeting in the middle. It isn’t compromise. The President had enough difficulty rounding up enough support in his own party. The opposition to the bill was bipartisan. The support was highly partisan. Lastly, ACA was passed in a lane duck session of Congress after a wave election. Even in the lane duck session, the vote was rushed before Scott Brown was able be sworn into office to replace Ted Kennedy. So much for listening to the will of the people and not making big decisions so close to an election.
Obama's Wars (2010) about the Obama administration's handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ISBN 978-1439172490
and
The Price of Politics (2012) about President Obama and congressional Republican and Democratic leaders' attempt to restore the American economy and improve the federal government's fiscal condition over 3.5 years. ISBN 978-1451651119.
So, I call bullshit. Show me the book. I want to read it. A Bob Woodward book specifically about the entire ObamaCare process.
Of course, I don't believe you ever read a book, because you like to keep ignorant. Plus, you've never been able to intelligently debate health care. You've never been able to come up with alternatives.
And BTW Joe, some reality check:
The day after she was one of three Republican senators to vote against her party's proposal to repeal chunks of the Affordable Care Act, Susan Collins of Maine posted a press release that said: "Democrats made a big mistake when they passed the ACA without a single Republican vote. I don't want to see Republicans make the same mistake."
It was a nice nod in the direction of bipartisanship. But it also perpetuates a deceptive narrative, repeated often by Republicans, that they were completely excluded from the process that resulted in Obamacare. While it is true that no Republican voted for the final bill, it is blatantly untrue that it contains no GOP DNA. In fact, to make such an assertion is like researching your ancestry and going no further back than your mother and father.
Not only were Republican senators deeply involved in the process up until its conclusion, but it's a cinch that the ACA might have become law months earlier if the Democrats, hoping for a bipartisan bill, hadn't spent enormous time and effort wooing GOP senators — only to find themselves gulled by false promises of cooperation. And unlike Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's semi-secret proceedings that involved only a handful of trusted colleagues, Obamacare, until the very end of the process, was open to public scrutiny.
Let's set the record straight. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (known as the HELP Committee), chaired first by Edward Kennedy and later by Christopher Dodd, held 14 bipartisan round-table meetings and 13 public hearings. Democrats on that committee accepted 160 Republican amendments to the bill. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Montana Democrat Max Baucus, was writing its own version of the ACA. It held 17 bipartisan round-table sessions, summit meetings and hearings with Republican senators.
On the House side, the Republican leadership made it clear to members that they were not to cooperate in any way with the effort to create the health insurance program proposed by President Obama. McConnell, then the Senate minority leader, was equally disapproving of cooperation. Despite that, a few Republican senators, such as Finance Committee members Charles Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming, were in discussions with the Democrats until McConnell warned both men that their future in the party would be in jeopardy if they supported the bill.
By the summer recess in August 2009, Republicans like Grassley were back in their states and hearing from the Tea Party movement that cooperating with Democrats on health care reform was akin to trading with the enemy. Nonetheless, a few Republicans such as Maine senator Olympia Snowe continued to work with Finance Committee Democrats. Remarkably, the bill before the committee was based on a plan devised by the Republicans more than a decade before — including now familiar elements of Obamacare such as the individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance, and state exchanges or marketplaces with plans offered by private insurers.
Cooperation with Republicans had the blessing of the highest Democratic authority. President Obama, seeking a "grand bargain" on health reform, conferred his benediction to continue discussions with any Republican senator willing to participate, but by the fall of 2009 it was clear that having the support of only one or two GOP senators would not be enough Republican DNA to support a plausible claim of bipartisanship. It was at this point that the work did move behind closed doors and into the leadership suite of Democratic leader Harry Reid.
The day after she was one of three Republican senators to vote against her party's proposal to repeal chunks of the Affordable Care Act, Susan Collins of Maine posted a press release that said: "Democrats made a big mistake when they passed the ACA without a single Republican vote. I don't want to see Republicans make the same mistake."
It was a nice nod in the direction of bipartisanship. But it also perpetuates a deceptive narrative, repeated often by Republicans, that they were completely excluded from the process that resulted in Obamacare. While it is true that no Republican voted for the final bill, it is blatantly untrue that it contains no GOP DNA. In fact, to make such an assertion is like researching your ancestry and going no further back than your mother and father.
Not only were Republican senators deeply involved in the process up until its conclusion, but it's a cinch that the ACA might have become law months earlier if the Democrats, hoping for a bipartisan bill, hadn't spent enormous time and effort wooing GOP senators — only to find themselves gulled by false promises of cooperation. And unlike Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's semi-secret proceedings that involved only a handful of trusted colleagues, Obamacare, until the very end of the process, was open to public scrutiny.
Let's set the record straight. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (known as the HELP Committee), chaired first by Edward Kennedy and later by Christopher Dodd, held 14 bipartisan round-table meetings and 13 public hearings. Democrats on that committee accepted 160 Republican amendments to the bill. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Montana Democrat Max Baucus, was writing its own version of the ACA. It held 17 bipartisan round-table sessions, summit meetings and hearings with Republican senators.
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On the House side, the Republican leadership made it clear to members that they were not to cooperate in any way with the effort to create the health insurance program proposed by President Obama. McConnell, then the Senate minority leader, was equally disapproving of cooperation. Despite that, a few Republican senators, such as Finance Committee members Charles Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming, were in discussions with the Democrats until McConnell warned both men that their future in the party would be in jeopardy if they supported the bill.
By the summer recess in August 2009, Republicans like Grassley were back in their states and hearing from the Tea Party movement that cooperating with Democrats on health care reform was akin to trading with the enemy. Nonetheless, a few Republicans such as Maine senator Olympia Snowe continued to work with Finance Committee Democrats. Remarkably, the bill before the committee was based on a plan devised by the Republicans more than a decade before — including now familiar elements of Obamacare such as the individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance, and state exchanges or marketplaces with plans offered by private insurers.
Cooperation with Republicans had the blessing of the highest Democratic authority. President Obama, seeking a "grand bargain" on health reform, conferred his benediction to continue discussions with any Republican senator willing to participate, but by the fall of 2009 it was clear that having the support of only one or two GOP senators would not be enough Republican DNA to support a plausible claim of bipartisanship. It was at this point that the work did move behind closed doors and into the leadership suite of Democratic leader Harry Reid.
It is always a mistake to infer from a vote on final passage of a bill in Congress that bipartisan cooperation was wholly absent from the process. You cannot assume that even a bill with no votes at all from the other party was not significantly influenced by the opposition at earlier stages in its development.
It may be politically useful for firing up your political base to accuse the other party of exclusionary tactics, but in most cases it just ain't so. Bipartisanship is encoded in much of the work that Congress does. Polarization is a much more compelling narrative, but it is rarely the whole story.