Former President Bill Clinton addresses the Netroots Nation Convention on the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. AP Photograph
After the toughest week yet for wellbeing reform, leading Democrats are warning the get together very likely will have to accept key compromises to have a bill handed this year – perhaps even dropping a proposal to create a government-run plan that is almost an article of faith among some liberals. With August dominated by angry faces and raised voices at town hall meetings, influential Democrats began laying the groundwork for the fall,
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Purchase Office 2007, saying they may need to accept a less-than-perfect bill to achieve overall health reform this yr. "Trying to hold the president's feet to the fire is fine, but first we ought to win the big argument," former President Bill Clinton said Thursday with the Netroots Nation convention, a gathering of liberal activists and bloggers who will prove most difficult to convince. "I am pleading with you. It is OK with me if you want to keep everybody honest. . . . But try to keep this thing in the lane of getting something done. We need to pass a bill and move this thing forward." “I want us to be mindful we may need to take less than a full loaf,
Windows 7 Enterprise,” he said right after recounting the political troubles that followed his failed reform effort in 1994. It won’t be an easy sell. Even former national celebration chairman Howard Dean this week threatened Democrats who don’t support the public insurance plan with the prospect of primary challenges – the first rumblings of what could devolve into a Democratic civil war over health care. There is no guarantee, either, that progressive House and Senate members wouldn't make good on their promise to oppose a bill without a public insurance plan. But the signs were everywhere this week that Democrats, stung and seemingly caught by surprise by the vehemence of the opposition to President Barack Obama’s overhaul plans, were already gaming out September and what it would take to obtain a bill to Obama’s desk. Jettisoning the public plan has always been one option,
Windows 7 Pro Key, and even Obama has signaled for weeks that he would consider alternatives to a government insurance plan, which moderate Democratic senators have nonetheless to embrace and nearly all Republicans oppose. And in the face of public resistance to Obama’s plans, some top Democrats have begun to talk more openly about the possibility of compromise on a bill. Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said twice this week that he was open to dropping the public plan to pass a bill. “We are determined to obtain a bill to the floor. It doesn't need to be a perfect bill. I don't want this process filibustered to failure,” he said. White House wellness reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle said recently the president was willing to study replacing the government-run plan with non-profit insurance cooperatives – a compromise under consideration in the Senate Finance Committee. Writing in a Washington Post op-ed, Democratic strategist Paul Begala, who is close to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, warned progressives against turning their backs on reform if it doesn’t include everything they want. As a former consultant to Clinton during the health and fitness care battle, Begala said he carries "a heavy burden of regret from my role in setting the bar too high the last time we tried fundamental health and fitness reform." He had urged Clinton to veto any bill short of guaranteeing universal health and fitness care. “It would be a bitter disappointment if health reform did not include a public option,” he wrote. "A public plan that keeps the insurance companies honest is, I believe, the right policy and the right politics. . . . The question is not whether I or other progressives will support a health-reform bill that includes everything we want but, rather, whether we will support a bill that doesn't.” There were other hints of compromise. When the congressional Democratic leadership and the White House issued August recess talking points before leaving town,
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