According to Fox News, (Mar. 3) U.S. President Barack Obama plans to pitch a smaller, more streamlined health care bill tomorrow than the one he introduced 3 days ago.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she hopes the new bill will garner the necessary GOP votes to pass:
“It will be a much smaller proposal than we had in the House bill because that’s where we can gain consensus. But it will be big enough to put us on a path of affordable, quality health care for all Americans that holds insurance companies accountable.”…
Melody Barnes, a top Obama domestic policy adviser, says Pelosi and Obama have drafted a smaller bill “borrowing” from conversations at Thursday’s health care summit. The new bill will contain a few carrots that the GOP can nibble on, such as tort reform and purchasing insurance across state lines so that consumers get more choices than what’s available in plans in their states.
Barnes went on to say, “We’re going to be borrowing from those conversations…to come up with a bill that we hope can receive bipartisan support.”
In other words, the Obama administration will come down off their high horses and listen to what members of the GOP have been saying all along. Obama campaigned on a promise of bipartisanship, but after taking office he has made little effort to be bipartisan.
So now, even if Obama is pretending to be bipartisan (as some suspect), he will have to put his money where his mouth is if he wants any sort of health care bill to pass.
Source: Hot Air
