Oh well, health care reform is now dead. (huh?)

[fencesitter]

According to this report in the NYT...

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/analyst-doubts-health-overhaul-can-pass/?hp

In a report to investors on Tuesday, Richard Evans, an analyst with Sector & Sovereign in New York, writes, “We no longer expect Congress to pass impactful health reform legislation this year, or even in this political cycle.”

Mr. Evans cites several factors that he believes makes passage less and less likely, including the increasing public opposition to the overhaul, as well as the emergence of politically divisive issues like abortion and immigration in the debate over the legislation’s specifics.

He also notes that the House and the Senate take very different views on how the overhaul should be paid for, with the House favoring a tax on the wealthy, and the Senate preferring a tax on the most generous insurance policies, the so-called Cadllac plans.

The result is what Mr. Evans sees as irreconcilable differences in opinion about where to get the money for reform, with the House and Senate “settled on a plan that the other cannot pass.”

“In short, we don’t think health reform is failing because someone hasn’t written the right bill; health care reform is failing because no one created a durable coalition in the first place, and potential members of such a coalition have been drawn into other (abortion, immigration, class) battles,” Mr. Evans writes. “For the time being, it‘s simply over.”

[NYCGirl]

1. Sounds like wishful thinking from Mr. Evans. NT

[Recursion]

4. As CS Lewis said in "The Screwtape Letters"

"there is probably wishful thinking even in hell, as on earth."

[Kdillard]

2. Wishful thinking.

[wryter2000]

3. Who in hell are these guys?

Just what Obama predicted...health care reform would be declared dead five or six times before it passed.

[Aramchek]

5. thanks for letting us know which side of the fence you sit on.

[OHdem10]

6. He makes excellent and strong points, no matter how I feel about it.

Over the past month, I have noticed more and more reporters
make little, "if bill passes. Abortion will kill HCR. if they
can get the votes. they do not have the votes."

Over the years, I have learned these little side comments often
rule the day in the long run.

[dgibby]

7. Agreed.

I may not like the message, but I appreciate the messenger. I'm always amazed when people feel the need to put down a post or poster because they disagree with, or don't like, the message.:shrug: