Hello
Post health care day mishmash under the cut:
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First of all, president Obama will sign the HC bill tomorrow at 11.15 am. If you want to co-sign it, you can. :)
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I really hope that now that there's an actual bill, people will take the time to look at what's in it without the dirty filters of the media and that other party, i can't remember their name now. Because this bill is just full of goodies that no one knows about. For instance, this been posted today at www.autism-society.org:
This bill, which passed the Senate in late December, includes the following provisions for people with autism:
- Insurers would be prohibited from excluding coverage based on pre-existing conditions;
- Insurers would be prevented from selectively refusing to renew coverage;
- Insurers would no longer be able to charge people different premiums based on their health status, gender or occupation;
- A standardized annual out-of-pocket spending limit would be established so that no family would face bankruptcy due to medical expenses;
- Annual and lifetime benefit caps would be prohibited;
- Mental health would be covered;
- "Habilitative" and "maintenance services" would be covered; and
- Coverage of "behavioral health treatments" such as ABA therapy, would be required.
Now show me a parent to a child with Autism, who will learn about these amazing changes and won't think that only the Democratic Party can take of their kid.
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Here's an emotional Patrick Kennedy, today on Good Morning America:
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"He would ask me, 'How will this help Laura?"
President Barack Obama repeatedly recalled the health care stories of Americans he met on trips around the country as Sunday's House health care vote neared, White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle said Monday.
"Periodically he would ask me, 'How will this help Laura? Does this bill, does this particular provision help her?'" DeParle told POLITICO.
Obama met Laura Klitzka in Green Bay, Wis., during the 2008 campaign. Klitzka thought she had beaten her breast cancer but later discovered it had spread to her bones. Though both she and her husband had health insurance, her medical bills landed her family in debt.
Obama carried strories like Klitzka's "carried with him throughout this, and it's been part of what I think has sustained his courage and his tenacity in going for this comprehensive reform," DeParle said.
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Stock of pundits opinions from all over:
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Andrew Sullivan
...Obama has bet that this is his destiny. He is extremely cautious from day to day, staggeringly flexible on tactics, but not at all modest when you look at the big picture. He still wants to rebuild the American economy from the ground up, re-regulate Wall Street, withdraw from Iraq, win in Afghanistan, get universal health insurance and achieve a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine in his first term. That’s all.
...This is what we’ve learnt this year: Obama does not mind defeats if they are procedural or about others saving face. He’s happy to admit error; to give his opponents a chance to lunge at his jugular; to let opponents enjoy a day in the sun; to shave off any small stuff as long as the big stuff remains. He seems oddly impervious to personal insult: he doesn’t mind being affronted by the Chinese or humiliated by Netanyahu as long as it’s a matter of symbolism. On substance, he wants what he wants; and, on the big stuff, he has given up on nothing yet.
And so we dig in, with the sole relief of knowing that Obama seems as serenely confident as ever. This fight is real and bloody and gruelling. But if he succeeds — from healthcare to Israel to Wall Street — he will bring real change, at home and abroad. And abroad because of at home.
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Jonathan Bernstein
Obama's great strength is patience. He has, as no one I can think of has had in recent times, an ability to just completely ignore the 24 hour news cycle. Whether it was his pre-Iowa nomination lull, or his summer 2008 doldrums, or his methodical planning for Afghanistan, or, over and over again, his refusal to panic on health care, the pattern is about as clear as any could be.
....Yes, I do think it's an enormous strength. he apparently just doesn't care at all about winning the news cycle, or the day, or even the week. He wants to win elections, and passage of legislation, and, I suspect, the war in Afghanistan. He seems, as far as I can tell, surrounds himself with people who have the same view.
I'll say one thing: I wouldn't bet against him.
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Frank Schaeffer
....Presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.
Obama is one of the most intelligent presidents to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times.
...Obama has a reservoir of personal, physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Take a look at the signs the Tea Party people carry. Take a look at the weapons they carry. As the first black president, Obama is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just plain unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our country. By stepping forward to lead, Obama has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white president ever has had to do. His health care reform victory just made his life more dangerous. What personal risk have his critics taken? What courage was required to snipe from the sidelines?
...Obama brings a healing and uplifting spiritual quality to our politics at the very time when our worst enemy is fear. For eight years we were ruled by a stunted fear-filled mediocrity -- Bush -- who expanded his power on the basis of creating fear in others. Fearless Obama is the cure. He speaks a litany of hope rather than a litany of terror. Bush legalized torture. Obama just legalized health care for all. Which line would you rather stand in?
....Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they've gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness. Doubters from the left and right just look cranky by comparison...
...A hundred years from now Obama's portrait will be placed next to that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Long before that we'll be telling our children and grandchildren that we stepped out in faith and voted for a young black man who stood up and led our country back from the brink of an abyss.
We'll tell them about the power of love, faith and hope. We'll tell them about the power of creativity combined with humility and intellectual brilliance.
We'll tell them that President Obama gave us the gift of regaining our faith in our country....
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Marc Ambinder
This is a day -- perhaps the first day since November 4, 2008 or January 20, 2009 -- that Democrats working in Washington can point to when they weigh whether the disruption to their family lives, friendships and psyches are worth the travails. Just two months ago, this bill was as good as dead. And then Democrats changed strategies, and Republicans overreached. President Obama took risks and led..
..."Everything changes," a senior administration official said tonight. What that means in practice remains to be seen. Privately, Republicans predict that President Obama's favorability ratings will rise at least five points and fortify Democrats in upcoming policy disputes about financial reform, education reform and immigration reform.
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Yglesias
Now that it’s done, Barack Obama will go down in history as one of America’s finest presidents. It’s always possible of course that, like LBJ, he’ll get involved in some unrelated fiasco that mars his reputation. But fundamentally, he’s reshaped the policy landscape in a way that no progressive politician has done in decades...
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E.J. Dionne
In approving the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the mid-1960s, Democrats proved that they can govern, even under challenging circumstances and in the face of significant internal divisions.
....For Obama, this struggle was transformative. He began his administration full of hope that his campaign pledge to achieve concord across party lines was a realistic possibility. But, when faced with implacable Republican opposition, he jettisoned the happy talk and came out fighting.
If bipartisanship is more fashionable than partisanship, partisanship with a purpose is infinitely preferable to paralysis. Obama has made clear that he will reach out when he can, and do battle when he must.
By temperament, the president is more a consensus builder than a warrior. But he is also a practical man who wants to accomplish big things.
On Sunday, he did just that on health care, and he earned a place in history.
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Andrew Sprung
The flip side of Obama's perhaps naive belief that he can win Republicans over is his ability to show them up. Americans are confused about the plan, but they are not confused about the man. By large margins they trust Obama more than they do the Republicans to produce rational solutions to the country's problems. In the past month, he exploited his mastery of policy detail, his pragmatism, his focus on effectively alleviating the suffering he spotlighted, and his willingness to stake his political future on getting this bill passed to the utmost. The full eloquence and passion of the campaign came back to his lips in forum after forum and speech after speech...
....In the bipartisan summit, he framed a core contrast: the Democrats would rein in the health insurers' worst practices; the Republicans would further enable them by weakening existing regulations. In rallies, he emphasized human suffering caused by leaving people uninsured and underinsured and enumerated the bill's benefits for ordinary people. ..
...The process may have been frustrating, and long, and ugly, as Obama told the crowd at George Mason on Friday. But it was also glorious.
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Jonathan Chait
Let me offer a ludicrously premature opinion: Barack Obama has sealed his reputation as a president of great historical import. We don't know what will follow in his presidency, and it's quite possible that some future event--a war, a scandal--will define his presidency. But we do know that he has put his imprint on the structure of American government in a way that no Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson has.
The last two generations have no model for such a president. The only two other Democratic presidents of the last four decades are Jimmy Carter, a failure, and Bill Clinton, who enjoyed modest successes but failed in his most significant legislative fight. Obama, who helped pull the country out of a depression and reshaped the health care system, has already accomplished far more than Clinton. He will never be plausibly compared with Jimmy Carter.
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Two old vids that i feel like posting today. First is this little feature about Obama's habit to read 10 letters every day. It's quite amazing to think what a huge role these letters actually played in winning this fight:
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The second is this speech he gave on Martin Luther King' day, couple of months back. It was a very somber speech, left me in tears and for the first time i actually thought that he was broken. Obviously i made the same mistakes so many keep doing every day when they insist to underestimate this man's amazing internal strength.
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Shiny happy people. All pictures taken by AP and Getty. Please don't hot-link:
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