Word: passe
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Against the strong wind of public opinion, Congressional Democrats passed a massive government takeover of health care in America on Sunday. This slap in the American people’s face is all the more egregious because of the opportunity the Democrats had to pass truly landmark, bipartisan legislation under allegedly “post-partisan” leadership from President Obama. Republicans and Democrats alike agree that health care is too expensive, and that, in the absence of reform, budgetary realities of Medicare and Medicaid will force harsh fiscal choices...
...opportunity for cost curve-bending reform was there: there were substantive changes on which Republicans would have voted “Aye.” Instead, the Democrats chose to pass along party lines a 2409-page bill, with an additional 153 pages of amendments, dictating from Washington how to operate 16 percent of the economy. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill calls for $938 billion in spending over the next decade. Where will the nearly $1 trillion in spending be funneled...
...Democrats passed the bill without a single Republican vote - and with the knowledge that it may well have ended the political careers of some who voted for it at a time when the public remains deeply divided over the entire endeavor. "If we pass this bill, there will be no turning back," warned minority leader John Boehner. "It will be the last straw for the American people." (See 10 health care reform...
...other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the President and his team were waiting and working the phones to make sure the final votes were nailed down. There was also the distraction of March Madness to pass the hours. One aide said of Obama: "He's in the West Wing, getting updates, dropping in on staff, and like the rest of America, examining the rubble of his bracket." At one point during the afternoon, the Commander in Chief ordered his health care czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle, to take a break...
...Aside from concern for the well-being of Americans, Europeans had another reason to want to see health care reform pass: Obama's political standing. Obama remains hugely popular in most of the continent, and European papers have treated the health care vote as a measure of the President's ability to push through his other policies. An editorial in Monday's Le Monde newspaper in France, titled simply "A Victory," referred not to the big news in France that day - the left's strong showing in the French regional elections - but to Obama's health care success. The President...