FAIRMONT — A few weeks.
A lot can happen in a few weeks. Just think, a few weeks ago, we were all lamenting the snow and poor road conditions. Now we’ve had enough spring-like weather over the past couple of days that the only snow left is the clumps in parking lots from the plows. And even those are melting faster than a Dairy Creme Corner ice cream cone on a hot July day.
Democratic leaders in Congress believe they will be able to pass the health-care overhaul and have it on President Obama’s desk for a signature within the next couple of weeks.
The House will probably vote on the Senate’s bill by the end of the week. And if they use the reconciliation process — meaning no possibility of a Republican filibuster — passage would only require a simple 51-vote majority to pass.
So the heat is on ... even though we haven’t had to use our heaters in days. “Spring forward,” if you will, to borrow the word play that helps us remember to set our clocks an hour ahead this morning for Daylight Saving Time.
Obama even postponed his trip to Asia this week to stay behind and drum up enough support for health-care passage. Maybe it’s time to call in some favors, make some House calls, and do some wheeling and dealing. And you can’t do that from Asia. Not even with a Smartphone.
Republican Rep. David Dreier of California told The Los Angeles Times that heavy pressure is bound to come on Democratic holdouts.
“We know that they are doing everything within their power to try and twist arms and encourage people to vote for something that is extraordinarily unpopular,” he said.
And some won’t be able to handle that pressure.
“They are quivering in their boots,” CBS news chief White House correspondent Chip Reid said. “But what the White House is doing now is trying to calm them in two ways: Number one, saying you’re better off passing something than nothing. If you go home and say we simply failed, that is the worst thing you can do. Also the White House is circulating polls on Capitol Hill that show that instead of this being unpopular, now finally it’s about even, that the support for health care reform is on the rise.”
Well, not according to our polls, which are posted each week on www.timeswv.com. In fact, overwhelmingly, it seems our voters are pretty unhappy with the health-care legislation as it is.
A few voters, or 8 percent, said they felt as if the legislation was too expansive. Those voters said “break the legislation into smaller pieces that have broad agreement.”
And only 17 percent of the voters were pleased with the legislation as it is. Those voters said that the “plan is sound ... pass it.”
But the majority — and we’re talking about more than 50 percent plus one — aren’t happy at all with the overhaul. Seventy-five percent of our voters said “scrap and rewrite it.”
These voters don’t seem to be happy with the pass-something approach. They want this bill to be meaningful, not just on Obama’s desk in two weeks.
This week, let’s talk D.C. again. Speaking of Congress, should incumbent U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan accept his primary challenger Mike Oliverio’s request for a series of debates?
Log on. Vote. E-mail me.
Misty Poe
Managing Editor
mpoe@timeswv.com
