Olympia Snowe: Health Care Vote

I think it's a safe bet to say that Olympia Snowe is Obama's favorite Republican. She gave the White House a gift.

Because of Snowe, Robert Gibbs could make the ludicrous claim, "We have today a bipartisan bill."

One Republican vote makes it bipartisan?

What about the Democrat opposition? Gibbs doesn't mention the bipartisan opposition to the bill as he spins the significance of Snowe's vote. That's not surprising.

Here's video of Olympia Snowe rambling on and on yesterday, trying to provide justification for her vote. She fails.



Frankly, Snowe doesn't come off too well, but, naturally, the Democrats and the lib media have embraced her.

From the New York Times:

After months of relentless courting and suspense, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, cast her vote with Democrats on Tuesday as the Senate Finance Committee approved legislation to remake the health care system and provide coverage to millions of the uninsured.

With Ms. Snowe’s support, the committee backed the $829 billion measure on a vote of 14 to 9, with all the other Republicans opposed.

“Is this bill all that I would want?” Ms. Snowe said. “Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls. And I happen to think that the consequences of inaction dictate the urgency of Congress to take every opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to solve the monumental issues of our time.”

Ms. Snowe’s remarks silenced the packed committee room, riveted colleagues and thrilled the White House. President Obama had sought her vote, hoping that she would break with Republican leaders and provide at least a veneer of bipartisanship to the bill, which he has declared his top domestic priority.

Mr. Obama, speaking in the Rose Garden, described the committee’s action as “a critical milestone” and declared, “We are now closer than ever before to passing health reform.” But he added: “Now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back. Now is not the time to offer ourselves congratulations. Now is the time to dig in and work even harder to get this done.”

I agree with Obama that now is the time to dig in and work even harder.

We just have different goals. I think it's time to dig in and prevent the destruction of our health care system and work even harder to reject the nationalization of a huge segment of our economy.

Obama wants to move the country to a single payer system. I don't. I want quality health care and innovation. If I wanted the sort of health care that Obama is pushing, I'd go to Cuba.

I have no confidence at all in giving the governmenet power to manage health care. I don't want the Democrats (and Snowe) to come between me and my doctor.

Rather than emphasizing the significance of Snowe's vote, I prefer to focus on the significance of the Dems standing in opposition to ObamaCare.
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"Lib darling of the day" Snowe makes the rounds of the morning talk shows.

Read her comments.