Obama Pushes Healthcare To Partisan Congress; Congress Ratings Lowest in 24 Years

This week found President Obama back on the stump, backing his plans for healthcare reform. The level of partisan politics seemed to rise (or fall in terms of common sense and decency) to another new level. A seemingly contradictory Obama refused to change his core ideas for healthcare, while insisting all the same that he is open to input, and also insisting that such input is not coming from Republicans. In his address to a special joint session of congress, Obama accused his political opponents of making "bogus claims," and went on to say that their "only agenda is to kill reform at any cost". (This is simply not the case: several well-written healthcare reform proposals have been submitted from the right of the aisle, including H.R. 2520, 3218, and 3400.) But the Democrats aren't the only ones acting belligerently. In Obama's speech to a special joint session of congress, he claimed that his plans would not insure illegal immigrants, to which Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted "you lie!" The President responded by saying "it's not true." When the President said he would welcome "serious" healthcare solutions, however, other Republicans respectfully held up paper copies of their bills.

It is also of note that Obama's plan has an estimated price tag of $900 Billion over the next 10 years. Obama has said time and again that it will not add to the defecit, but he has yet to display a single numerical statistic as to how this could be achieved.

In other news, The Pew Research Center For The People And The Press has found congress' favorability to be at the lowest point in 24 years. The report published September 2nd stated only 37% of the 2,003 American adults polled said they held a favorable view of Congress, while 52% said they held an unfavorable opinion.

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