Chamber Won’t Push for Health Repeal

[kpete]

Source: Wall Street Journal


WSJ Blogs
Chamber Won’t Push for Health Repeal


By Elizabeth Williamson

Republicans in Congress shouldn’t look to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to support a repeal of the health-care overhaul, the group’s chief executive said today.

In an interview with Wall Street Journal reporters and editors, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue criticized the health care legislation as a “very, very expensive” and disruptive change to the nation’s health-care delivery system. A companion bill that completes the overhaul legislation cleared the House last night and is expected to cross the final hurdles in the Senate this week.

But Donohue made it clear the chamber won’t be spending any of its substantial war chest on a campaign, favored by Republicans, to repeal the legislation. The Washington-based chamber, which represents three million businesses of all sizes, spent heavily in an unsuccessful effort to kill the health bill. Minutes after Democrats won passage in the House Sunday night, the chamber issued a statement calling the vote “a wrong and unfortunate decision that ignores the will of the American people.”

But once the bill becomes law, Donohue said, “If people want to try and repeal, let them. We’re not going to spend any capital on that.” Instead, he said the chamber will push for changes to the bill when it enters the regulatory stage, always a key pressure point.

Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/03/22/chamber-wont-push-for-health-repeal/

[Elwood P Dowd]

1. I want to throw something at the TV every time I see that asshole, and that goes back

to the free trade debates in the 1990s.

[Mithreal]

6. I wish we were debating all the Free Trade Agreements in the works by the Obama admin

[Unvanguard]

2. Good. That means they think it's futile. n/t

[Mithreal]

5. When have you known conservative assholes to give up?

If they aren't going to fight it, there is more than one explanation.

[Unvanguard]

7. Not all of them are crazy fanatics like the tea-baggers.

They have every reason to not want to throw money at a hopeless struggle.

[Mithreal]

8. And how many tens of millions did they spend against Dems in the 2008 elections?

Bush destroyed the Republican Party. It was a great year for Dems, didn't keep the Chamber from throwing tens of millions of good money at bad.

[Unvanguard]

9. Maintaining their ties to the Republican Party is worth it in itself.

It is not comparable to their focus (or lack of such) on particular issues.

[Mithreal]

10. There's a lot more to this story. One, focus on lobbying.

Two, focus on the astroturf.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce sets sights on Democrats ahead of midterm elections

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, already one of Washington's largest lobbying groups, is gearing up to play a major role in this year's midterm elections on a scale that rivals the nation's two main political parties.

Modeled in part on Barack Obama's 2008 campaign juggernaut, the group has built a grass-roots operation known as Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It has a member list of 6 million names, aimed at lobbying on legislation and swaying voters to back preferred candidates, primarily Republicans, in battleground areas, officials said.

The group will target vulnerable Democrats in up to two dozen states with ads, get-out-the-vote operations and other grass-roots efforts. The chamber plans to spend at least $50 million on political races and related activities this year, a 40 percent increase from 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031602040.html

I am sure there are other prongs.

Edit to add, they don't need to spend anything to repeal a bill that they can now work with and shape.

“There’s never been a bill this size ever written on anything that doesn’t go back for adjustments and refinements,” Donohue said. He added that the chamber will make its views on the bill known in “the court of public opinion, and maybe…the elections.”

In the chamber statement last night, Donohue vowed that “Should the legislation passed by the House today become law, the Chamber will work through all available avenues—regulatory, legislative, legal, and political—to fix its flaws and minimize its potentially harmful impacts.”

The chamber already is laying plans for the election season. “Through the largest issue advocacy and voter education program in our history, we will encourage citizens to hold their elected officials accountable when they choose a new Congress this November,” Donohue said in the statement.

[saracat]

3. There is a very good reason for that.

[Mithreal]

4. Ironic, isn't it.

And just a few days ago, the support of AMA, AARP and the resistance by the Chamber were held up as PROOF that this round of reform was good.

[New Dawn]

11. The Chamber of Commerce obviously supports the Individual Mandate.

I'm sure they'd love to expand it to a long list of other products and services as well.

[KoKo]

12. I think the "Chamber" got most of what it wanted on the "First Round" from Obama...so

it can certainly afford to wait to see the Fall Back from the rest of the RW to this fake Bill from the rest of their RW'ers who will shoot the first guns and the "COC" can come in later and finish off the dead.

If it comes from WaPo...we know it was leaked for MESSAGE. In this case...DISINFO. Read it with some skepticism..I say..imho.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Of course, they're not going to fight it, this bill greatly enriches the for profit

"health" insurance corporations while also advancing corporate supremacy over the American People and their government.

That's why Republicans were the first to come up with the idea.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x525331

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[No Elephants]

14. How soon would people have been covered if Democrats had not fought Nixon's health care plan?

http://modern-us-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_nixonkennedy_healthcare_plan

"Similar to the situation faced by President Johnson, partisan opposition to Nixon's policies was firmly entrenched. In this instance, few were prepared to label the renowned anti-communist president as an advocate for socialism. Instead his opponents, such as Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy of Massachusetts, attacked Nixon on the grounds that he was offering a deal that would see the insurance companies benefit.

Nixon, for his part, was stalwart in his belief that a national health insurance plan was vital to the country’s future. He stated in his 1974 State of the Union Address that “The time is at hand this year to bring comprehensive, high quality health care within the reach of every American.” Nixon’s own past experience with poverty and family illness made this a personal issue for the President. Yet Nixon’s call for an employer mandate to provide health insurance as part of his planned universal health care coverage for all citizens was seen as inadequate by many democrats in congress. The plan was also opposed by powerful unions such as the AFL-CIO and the United Autoworkers, who lobbied hard to defeat the legislation.

Kennedy and Nixon Reach a Compromise
In a moment of bi-partisan cooperation, Nixon’s staunch foe, Ted Kennedy, agreed to a compromise deal and prepared to work to get the health care legislation passed through congress. However, the brewing Watergate scandal soon took over the headlines and distracted the President from pushing through with this initiative. With the President unable to continue to rally support, the efforts of the Unions, who hoped for a better deal under a new presidential administration, succeeded in derailing the Nixon-Kennedy health care bill.


Read more at Suite101: The Nixon-Kennedy Health Care Plan: How Richard Nixon and Edward Kennedy Worked For American Health Care http://modern-us-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_nixonkennedy_healthcare_plan#ixzz0j0EpHQlt

Senator Kennedy later said he deeply regretted his opposition.

Interestingly, Nixon, a Republican, proposed placing the mandate on businesses, not individuals. It took the Clintons and Obama to place a mandate on individuals. And people wonder why those in the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party react negatively to PNAC wing of the Democratic Party.

Wake up, Americans. The knee jerk reactions along party lines by both Democrats and Republicans are not doing us any good.

[Mithreal]

15. +1