Landrieu On Health Care: ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’

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Some Democrats may be willing to keep fighting for health care reform even after losing their filibuster-proof supermajority in the senate. But it sure doesn’t sound like Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is one of them.

On MSNBC this morning, Landrieu seemed to suggest that Democrats go “back to the drawing board” on health care.

“I would strongly advise about completely going back to the drawing board,” Landrieu said.

There’s always tomorrow and next year and several years. We can continue to improve it. This is a massive undertaking. We’ve been debating it for 47 years.

Landrieu also suggested that Democrats should push for “bipartisan consensus” to try to pass health care reform. Because that worked so well the first time…

Before suggesting that Democrats reach across the aisle, Landrieu took a quick shot at her Republican colleagues.

The American people want a health care bill that is cost effective, that drives down the cost of health care, including their own personal premiums. They want choices in the private sector. And they’d like to see the millions of Americans that have no access to health care have it in a cost effective way. And that’s what we’re trying to produce, contrary to all the pitiful rhetoric associated with this bill given by the Republican side.

Landrieu continued: “Having said that, this is a wake-up call to Democrats. We’ve gotta do a better job of communicating. And we need to try even harder to reach some kind of bipartisan consensus. We tried. The Republicans sat down on this one. Maybe they’ll get up and help.”

Late Update: We’ve placed a call to Landrieu’s Senate office to see if she really does want to send health care reform back to the drawing board. Maybe she just misspoke? We’ll try to find out.

Late Late Update: I just got off the phone with Landrieu’s spokesman, who said that the senator simply misspoke. She does NOT want to go back to the drawing board on health care reform. Phew.

And here’s the video, so you can see for yourself.

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