Reid to Obama: No More Voting Present on Health Care

Obama's decision to let Congress write its own legislature has been the cause of of most of their miseries and conflicts. By having a radical left proposal and a slightly more moderate bill emerge in the house he has opened up the fissures in the Democratic party for all to see. When Pelosi and the liberal take a hard line, understand she is not doing it against the GOP, but against her fellow Democrats and Obama himself. We have seen this time and again be it for Obama's Pharma deal, the payment schedules for any health care plan. the so called public option, the mandate, and at what level a person would be eligible for subsidies to purchase insurance. There is something striking about this story, that months into the health care debate Reid is asking Obama to stop voting present and choose what should be in the bill. This is supposed to be Obama's signature issues and even top Democrats aren't sure what he wants!

WASHINGTON — As the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, takes on the delicate task of melding two competing versions of major health care legislation, aides say he will lean heavily on President Obama to arbitrate a number of contentious issues that still threaten to divide liberal and centrist Democrats and derail a final bill.

Mr. Reid’s challenge is to stitch together legislation that can win 60 votes to stop a Republican filibuster. It must satisfy liberals demanding more generous subsidies and safety-net provisions for the middle class, without alienating centrist budget hawks or Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has indicated she might back the bill.

Democrats now control 60 seats in the Senate, with the appointment last week of Paul G. Kirk Jr. of Massachusetts as the interim successor to Edward M. Kennedy, who died in August. But the party is far from united on the health care issue, even though Mr. Obama has declared it his top domestic priority and has expended enormous political capital on getting a bill passed.

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said the task of merging the two bills would be “very challenging.” Democrats are also mindful of the disaster that befell them in 1994 after the majority leader, George J. Mitchell of Maine, failed to pull together competing health care proposals.

Of course there is the simple matter of how this is going to be paid for. In all likelihood expect a increase in taxes, fake numbers claiming savings, and they increase to the deficit anyway.