On health care: 'Finish the kitchen'
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
WashPost
Monday, February 8, 2010
If President Obama gets to sign a health-reform bill, as I believe he will, one reason may be Rep. Jay Inslee's difficult experience renovating his kitchen.
He told his kitchen story at a House Democratic caucus after Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts sent Inslee's colleagues into paroxysms of dismay, chaos and fear. Brown's triumph reduced the Democrats' majority in the Senate to "only" 59, and this led many in both houses to want to give up on health reform altogether. Even Obama was sounding an uncertain trumpet.
This made no sense to Inslee, a Democrat from Washington state. First elected to the House in 1992, he was swept out of office in the 1994 Republican landslide that followed the collapse of Bill Clinton's health-care efforts. Four years later, Inslee returned to Congress.
"I introduced myself as a fella who was defeated in 1994, the last time we didn't pass meaningful health-care reform," Inslee recalls saying. "I said it was a painful event, and I didn't want them to go through that pain." In politics, he told his colleagues, assuming the "fetal position" can be the most dangerous thing to do.
(More here.)
WashPost
Monday, February 8, 2010
If President Obama gets to sign a health-reform bill, as I believe he will, one reason may be Rep. Jay Inslee's difficult experience renovating his kitchen.
He told his kitchen story at a House Democratic caucus after Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts sent Inslee's colleagues into paroxysms of dismay, chaos and fear. Brown's triumph reduced the Democrats' majority in the Senate to "only" 59, and this led many in both houses to want to give up on health reform altogether. Even Obama was sounding an uncertain trumpet.
This made no sense to Inslee, a Democrat from Washington state. First elected to the House in 1992, he was swept out of office in the 1994 Republican landslide that followed the collapse of Bill Clinton's health-care efforts. Four years later, Inslee returned to Congress.
"I introduced myself as a fella who was defeated in 1994, the last time we didn't pass meaningful health-care reform," Inslee recalls saying. "I said it was a painful event, and I didn't want them to go through that pain." In politics, he told his colleagues, assuming the "fetal position" can be the most dangerous thing to do.
(More here.)
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