Word: reformations
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...Obama will take his case for health-care reform directly to the American people - again - and compete head to head with the 8 p.m. season premiere of America's Next Top Model. The speech is less a recalibration of his health-care effort than a restatement of purpose. Aides caution that he will neither demand a so-called public-health-insurance option nor abandon his desire to see one achieved. He will not give up his quest for a bipartisan compromise in the Senate, nor will he vow to abandon the possible use of parliamentary procedures that would allow Democrats...
...time might be upon us. On Sept. 6, in an interview with CNN, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, a longtime opponent of a public-health-insurance option, said he could support a public plan as a "fail-safe" or "backstop" that would be created only if insurance companies did not reform their business practices over the coming years. Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, a key swing vote from Maine, has also spoken favorably about a triggered fail-safe. (See TIME's health and medicine covers...
...Despite the recent drop in poll support for reform, Democratic strategists still see several viable routes to getting a health-care bill through the Senate with the 60 votes necessary to avoid a filibuster. These include, in declining order of preference for the White House: forging a bipartisan consensus to pass the 60-vote threshold; holding all 59 Democratic Senators and recruiting the GOP's Snowe; depending entirely on Democratic votes, including a replacement for Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. The last alternative is to use parliamentary maneuvers to pass major parts of the legislation with just 51 votes...
...clear, fixed legislative plan on Wednesday night are likely to be disappointed. Obama's mission, when he takes the podium in the House, flanked by his Vice President and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will be less about forcing the hand of Congress than re-energizing public support for reform, something that is essential for members of Congress to feel they have the cover to vote...
...This hostility has not been missed by the Turkish. Support in Turkey for membership fell from over 70% in 2004 to 42% by the end of last year. The sense of being excluded has further demoralized Turkish reformers, the report says, leading to "a regrettable slowdown in the reform process" that is a condition of membership. This, in turn, feeds skeptics in European countries who point to the lack of reforms as proof that Turkey is unworthy of joining the E.U. It's a vicious circle that jeopardizes Turkish domestic reforms and hurts the E.U.'s own interests...