After fruitlessly seeking a bipartisan compromise on health care reform for months, the White House seems to have finally realized that Republicans have no interest in compromising and that progressives are fed up with making nice. Now, the administration is preparing to go it alone, even if that means passing reform on a straight party-line vote.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and even President Obama himself have all suggested that they don’t think the GOP is serious about reaching a bipartisan health care reform compromise–and with key Republicans suggesting that they’ll vote against a bill that doesn’t also have the support of a majority of their own party, it’s only one logical step to the conclusion that the administration has accepted that health care reform will be the latest initiative to move forward along party lines.
Over the weekend an anonymous source told Bloomberg that the White House is “devising a strategy to pass a measure by relying only on the Democratic majority in each house of Congress.”
And former Senate Majority Leader (and Obama confidant) Tom Daschle says Obama’s giving up on the GOP. “He’s waited and waited,” Daschle said after a meeting with the President on Friday. “He has indicated, much to the chagrin of people in his party, that virtually everything’s on the table. And he’s gotten almost nothing in return for it.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also says Democrats are ready to move forward on their own.
The rumblings are unmistakable. What remains to be seen is how the GOP responds to the threat and, if they don’t respond to Obama’s liking, whether the Democrats will carry out the threat.
