Olympia Snowe on Meeting With Obama

Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are two republicans I respect because when they criticize they do so without the name calling. They're also the only two that have shown willingness to work with the democrats on a consistent basis. Obama met with six folks on the senate finance committee. Here's what Snowe said:

We’re not talking about government-run health care – we’re talking about ensuring Americans have access to meaningful, high-quality, affordable health coverage – and we are moving heaven and earth to reach that objective. As I mentioned to the President today, unless every American receives better value for their health dollars, we cannot sustain our current health care system. And that’s why we will keep working within this bipartisan, collaborative process Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley have set the tone for -- and that we will continue over the coming weeks.” Read the whole thing at Politico

Blue Dog Willing to Give up Recess for Health Care

Blue dog democrat Ron Kind of Wisconsin says he's willing to give up the August recess to get healthcare done. He also says he's behind Obama on health care. James Clyburn also says he'll skip vacation. Can we have more of this kind of support please? Obama has been a one-man show and he needs some backup. I'm with Ed. No vacation for Congress. Get this done and then take a recess.

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What Obama is up against: republicans who are only looking to get back in power and could care less about health care reform and a slew of stories such as this one by Howard Fineman on why Obama might fail on health care. If Obama fails, we all lose. No Obama. No health care.