Vice President Biden to Step Up Role in White House Health Care Reform Push
EmailABC News' Karen Travers reports: Vice President Biden will step up his role in the Obama Administration's push for health care reform next week, with two speeches and a more concerted outreach to his former colleagues in the Senate, a senior administration official said Friday. President Obama will be focusing on foreign policy and national security next week when he travels to the United Nations General Assembly meeting and the G20 summit. Biden's role will be to keep up the administration's health care efforts and put to good use his decades of relationships on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday Biden will deliver remarks on health insurance reform to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The following day he will talk to seniors at the Leisure World retirement community in Silver Spring, MD. Biden will seek to reassure senior citizens that health care reform will not affect them negatively; their Medicare coverage will remain as strong for them as it is now, and their coverage will be better in the long run because reform will strengthen the overall system. The vice president will be joined at the senior citizens event by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and White House health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle. Biden will more actively engage his former colleagues in the Senate than he has thus far in the reform debate. A senior administration official said Biden would talk to both Democrats and Republicans with whom he has had long relationships in an effort to continue a push for bipartisanship.
Biden has over three decades of experience in the Senate, but his signature issues have been foreign policy and judicial and criminal matters. The vice president just returned from a three-day trip to Iraq, his third visit there this year. This summer Biden added Iraq to his policy portfolio at the request of President Obama and he has been the administration's point person on the Recovery Act since its implementation earlier this year. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was vague last week when asked what role the Vice President was taking in the administration's push for health care reform. "Obviously the Vice President brings extensive knowledge of a number of members of Congress, knowledge that the President relied on in the buildup in the days ahead of the speech, in the discussions, the policy discussions, that we had here," Gibbs said. "And he will continue to rely on his knowledge and his expertise in moving this legislation forward." -Karen Travers
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An award-winnning car salesman can sell a 2010 model as 2012. Mr. Obama can sell a bible to the devil.
Posted by: young_voter | September 18, 2009, 6:36 pm 6:36 pm
Mr. Obama has thus far failed catastrophically to sell this cuckoo healthcare reform package to the American people.
Meanwhile, we learn of another stunning triumph for the single-payer system in industrialized, first class world power Great Britain:
“The system for providing care for the frail and vulnerable elderly can no longer cope, the Health Secretary admitted today. Andy Burnham said that the state cannot help many of those who cannot look after themselves and warned those approaching old age that they will have to pay heavily for their own care.”
And keep in mind that those approaching old age in Britain have no health insurance, and no opportunity to get any. Yet a single-payer system remains the ideal for so many starry-eyed visionaries in the U.S.
Go figure.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | September 18, 2009, 6:58 pm 6:58 pm
Biden to step up: How’s that recovery . gov goin?
Posted by: pauldia | September 18, 2009, 7:41 pm 7:41 pm
Considering the Biden keeps putting his foot in his mouth, this will be interesting, but probably won’t help the insurance debate.
Posted by: Jeff | September 18, 2009, 8:03 pm 8:03 pm
Jake, now would be a good time to bring back some of those “Oh, that Joe!” topics you had during the campaign. Some of those were priceless.
Posted by: Woody | September 18, 2009, 9:26 pm 9:26 pm
Maybe Joe will blow the whole deal!
Posted by: Ed Taylor | September 18, 2009, 11:03 pm 11:03 pm
Vice President Biden will help the reform in a great way. He holds a lot of honor in politics, he has been doing it a very long time.
I don’t think we realize his power and influence. He is well respected. Great video on whitehouse with Vice President Biden on healthcare, Good job, very good job.
Posted by: God hear my prayer | September 18, 2009, 11:24 pm 11:24 pm
Vice President Biden will help the reform in a great way.
***
Yep, I recall Joe doing very well with senior citizens on the campaign trail and it wasn’t long after negotiations over the stimulus package Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties from Republican to Democrat but, hey, let the GOP continue to misunderstimate Joe.
Posted by: Alyson | September 19, 2009, 12:10 am 12:10 am
The best estimate from 2001 was 20,000, but now we find out that 44,789 people die annually due to lack of health insurance
Posted by: Flash Override | September 19, 2009, 9:14 am 9:14 am
As Mrs. Obama is a former healthcare administrator, I would be really interested in her view of the operating models used by the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic to keep costs down while delivering fantastic patient care.
Does anyone know which hospital/group she worked for? I used to be with Ancilla Systems out of Chicago many years ago.
Posted by: ncdad57 | September 19, 2009, 2:16 pm 2:16 pm
Have you guys noticed V.P. Biden bears a striking resemblance to Walter, one of Jeff Dunham’s characters? Weren’t President Obama’s grandparents Dunhams?
Are they related?Just coincidence?
Posted by: ncdad57 | September 19, 2009, 2:22 pm 2:22 pm
young_voter
Nancy Pelosi is in need of a bible?
Posted by: David from WI | September 19, 2009, 2:22 pm 2:22 pm
Yes! First Michelle, now Joe!
Obamacare is doooooooomed!
Posted by: Winston | September 19, 2009, 3:51 pm 3:51 pm
With Biden taking the stage and opening his mouth, health care reform may very well go down in flames. We are fired up and ready to go…turn the channel.
He is not the best spokesperson for this. Michelle is a better speaker, but the cry me a river stories will not convince those who are not already supportive.
Obama should take Baucus and his committee, including the GOP and go to camp david to work through the proposals point by point. then maybe we might get a good bill. its getting better, but not there yet.
Posted by: scott jeffries | September 19, 2009, 4:11 pm 4:11 pm
Is Health Care Reform Constitutional?
The administration seems to be operating under a distorted version of the Commerce Clause that has been grossly misinterpreted over the years as allowing the feds to regulate and control just about everything. In United States vs. Lopez in 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress can only regulate human activity that is truly commercial at its core. One does not go to a doctor to engage in commercial activity. The Supreme Court has specifically rejected the idea that Congress can regulate noneconomic activities simply because through a chain of collective events they might have some impact down the road.
Posted by: Sandcrab1612 | September 20, 2009, 1:46 am 1:46 am
Send in the clowns!!
Sheriff Joe and his posse giving the thumbs up for Nobama Care is the Death nail for the so called “REFORM”.
Ah….where does Sheriff Joe stand on the ACORN issue and does he think it is a Right Wing racist plot?
Posted by: American Infidel | September 20, 2009, 9:33 am 9:33 am
It’s about to get a whole lot funnier and even more ridiculous than it is now.
Doll Head to the rescue!
Posted by: Peter Wong | September 20, 2009, 3:00 pm 3:00 pm
Isn’t it funny how the subjects of gay marriage or prayer in school, etc. will bring out objecting cries from the right that this is a Christian nation, but the idea of giving affordable health insurance somehow isn’t the Christian thing to do?
The hypocrisy of this is blatant. I picture Jesus as being horrified that people are dying, losing their homes, suffering without needed medication while their ‘Christian’ fellow citizens fight the idea of affordable medical insurance. It may sound corny but my grandma taught us to think about what Jesus would do in any given situation. He sure as heck wouldn’t be putting the high profits of the insurance company before an affordable public health insurance option.
Posted by: Lydia | September 20, 2009, 3:09 pm 3:09 pm
HEALTH INSURANCE: PRIVATE ENTERPRISE VS. GOVERNMENT?
CBS/NYT
Now
Private enterprise 32%
Government – all problems 49%
Government – emergencies 10%
Don’t know 9%
1/1979
Private enterprise 48%
Government – all problems 28
Government – emergencies 12
Don’t know 12
Posted by: Flash Override | September 21, 2009, 10:43 am 10:43 am
59% say the government should provide national health insurance, including 49% who say such insurance should cover all medical problems.
Posted by: Flash Override | September 21, 2009, 10:44 am 10:44 am