President Barack Obama went on TV for a third straight day to push for passage of health care legislation he hopes will extend coverage to 50 million uninsured people. Standing at his side at the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi renewed a promise to bring legislation to the House floor by August.Once again the political Babelfish gets to translate: WOO-WOO! You hear that sound? That's a train a-comin'! You 'bout to get railroaded!!
"We've got to get it done this year," Obama said. "We don't have any excuses; the stars are aligned."
The developments underscored a quickening drive toward health care overhaul legislation in Congress.
Obama has asked the health insurers, doctors, hospitals and others who brought the much-ballyhooed — but vague — $2 trillion cost-saving idea to the White House earlier this week to produce specifics by June 1.
What's the rush? Obama and Pelosi both know that people are starting to suffer from bail-out fatigue. The desire to overhaul everything in sight while racking up mind-numbing deficits is starting to wear on the American psyche. People simply cannot sustain a heightened sense of urgency over a long period of time; their emotions simply give way.
Americans should be extremely wary of anything of that scale that "must" be done "right now". Things that are rushed to be done are usually things that are done badly or shouldn't have been done at all. As much as everyone likes to gripe and complain about Congress being a model of inefficiency, there's a very good democratic principle involved in letting it be so. Debate is healthy, so that all sides get aired. Checks and balances are good for democracies; no one party or person should be able to ride roughshod over the other -- that's how despotism starts.
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