Dean: ‘Bush Would Have Had the Health Care Bill Done a Long Time Ago’
EmailABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:
Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean told MSNBC on Tuesday that Republican Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts is the latest sign that Democrats in Washington need to toughen up.
“We’ve got to be tougher. I’ve said the Democrats are not tough enough,” said Dean. “Bush would have had the health care bill done a long time ago. He would have gone through reconciliation.”
Dean said that the election does not mean that Democrats should give up on health-care reform. Instead, he thinks it means that they should jettison the drawn-out, compromised process that they have been following as they have tried to put together 60 votes in the Senate.
During his post-election interview on MSNBC, Dean seemed skeptical about the wisdom and likelihood of getting the House of Representatives to pass the identical Senate bill. The “pass the Senate bill” approach is under consideration by the White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill because Brown pledged to block Obama’s health-care overhaul if elected to the Senate.
The former DNC chairman is advocating that President Obama start over with a bill that simply allows Americans over 55 to buy into Medicare.
Dean said a Medicare expansion is easy to understand, gets people insurance right away, and can go through the reconciliation process, which would only require a simple majority vote rather than 60 votes in the Senate.
He acknowledged that budget reconciliation cannot be used to pass insurance reform but argued that there is not much “real” insurance reform in the Senate bill anyway.
Dean added that Brown’s election to the Senate seat that was filled for decades by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., may actually “make the process better.”
“I think we would have been better off if we had had 59 senators to start with,” Dean said.
Dean thinks Democrats would have been better off at 59 from the beginning because it would have put them on the reconciliation path earlier in the process.
Santorum: Money Will Not Defeat Obama, Ideas Will 
Rick Santorum's Full Speech at CPAC 2012
The democrates have just been handed what they sit on. Cap & trade is history.
Posted by: ER9 | January 19, 2010, 11:34 pm 11:34 pm
BUSH WOULD HAVE LISTED TO THE PEOPLE WHO PUT HIM IN OFFICE!
THE OBAMA/PELOSI/REID TRAINWRECK HELPED SCOTT BROWN WIN MASSACHUSETTS.
THEY NEED TO LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE. INSTEAD, THEY EXPECT US TO SIT AND SHUT UP WHILE THEY SHOVE THEIR AGENDAS DOWN OUR THROATS.
THEY NEED TO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP — AND HEAR OUR VOICES. NO MORE LIES FROM OBAMA/PELOSI AND REID. WE WANT CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN. THEY GAVE US CHANGE THAT IS DESTROYING AMERICA.
PAY ATTENTION! DID YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS?
CAN YOU HEAR US YET?
Posted by: 1CAROLINAUNC | January 19, 2010, 11:39 pm 11:39 pm
i’m a conservative and dean is saying part of what i have been saying the democrats should do if they were smart. people have a good feeling about medicare, all they had to do was lower the age at which it was offered. instead they went for a grandiose, 2,000 pages of new ideas that would be each highly debated and highly criticised. the only thing that dean needs to add to his idea is for insurance companies to be able to sell insurance in every state, portability, individuals having the same tax write-offs as business.
Posted by: bill | January 19, 2010, 11:58 pm 11:58 pm
Dean is correct, but he didn’t go far enough. Any HCR should have been totally disposed of before the August recess. Nice work-Sens. Reid and Baucus. So now 50,000 people in Mass.-Cosmo Boy’s margin-just derailed the whole process.
Posted by: B.Bear | January 20, 2010, 12:04 am 12:04 am
They need to get the Health Care bill passed anyway possible and if they dont, the Democratic Party will come crashing down with a louder thud than what you heard tonight in Massachusetts. The Democrat Party with their stupid in fighting and bickering are proving that they dont know how to use the power that the American people gave them in 2008. I for one will get the hell out of the Democratic Party and become an Independent.
Posted by: johnnylee | January 20, 2010, 12:06 am 12:06 am
Heh..hmm, Brown is only in for 2 years. Remember that folks, and like Obama, he did not appeal to me, oh, btw, I am an Independent voter and I voted third party.
Both parties SUCK, you go from the pan to the fire and back into the pan! I don’t see the message that is being sent!! All I see is replacing one dimwit with another!!!
Posted by: The Reichwing are clueless | January 20, 2010, 2:08 am 2:08 am
They didn’t need to toughen up. The Republicans didn’t have enough votes to stop a one float parade. That all ended on Tuesday night because the people are fed up with those in Washington who want to make these backroom bribes and kickbacks on the backs of the American people. The voters in MA had enough of the Democrats trickery of ignoring the constituents. I hope this is a sign of a tidal wave yet to come later this year and in 2012. Massachusetts voters have said “enough”. America will be saying just as much come November.
Posted by: BigSky1970 | January 20, 2010, 2:22 am 2:22 am
That’s right Mr Dean..just ram the sucker down our throats…yeah, that’s the lesson to be learned here..
These Dems are either deaf, drunk, or dictators.
Posted by: cindy | January 20, 2010, 6:32 am 6:32 am
Can you hear me now,KILL THE BILL, start over with a bill that the benifits start at the same time as the tax, get rid of all the pork and bribes, give me an honest bill that helps people not greedy special interest groups.
Posted by: earl | January 20, 2010, 7:22 am 7:22 am
Dean is correct. Bush would have gotten the health bill resolved quickly. I don’t know why dems make everything so difficult! I’m getting tired of the wishy-washy attitudes! Stop the back room crap, cut the pork, forget about whose lining your pockets and get a healthcare bill that actually works for the PEOPLE!
Posted by: jks | January 20, 2010, 8:34 am 8:34 am
Obama should have taken control of the healthcare bill in the first place. Letting a congress full of bribe takers and crooks was just asking for trouble…. and he got it! The bill should have been done months ago but politics as usual won out again! Independent or third party looks better and better!
Posted by: zee | January 20, 2010, 10:12 am 10:12 am
When the Federal Government initiates a Bill, the people of this country must question why and who is to prosper. Healthcare legislation as proposed is not good for Americans as a whole so follow the money and then decide. Please remember this is the same Government that has screwed up Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Banking Industry, while blaming everyone but themselves for the mess. At the same time we become deeper and deeper in debt, some thirteen trillion or so at this time with no end in site. If you still trust these people, consider yourself stupid.
Posted by: John A. Bird | January 20, 2010, 12:00 pm 12:00 pm
Thank God for Scott Brown, maybe now the majority in Washington will HAVE to listen to the people who reject this health care bill and the way it was being force upon the American people. They is a God!
Posted by: wags101 | January 20, 2010, 12:57 pm 12:57 pm