What are the chances health care reform happens?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
It's turning out to be a piece of legislation that nobody wants - not the public, not a consensus among the members of Congress. Nobody. Except maybe the pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/01/12/art.pills.money.jpg caption=""]
Amid dire warnings from Senator Chris Dodd that the health care reform bill is quote "hanging on by a thread" comes news from a major poll that the public has lost interest.
After months of debate - a couple of 2,000-page monstrosities passed the House and Senate - and our illustrious political leadership has dragged those documents behind closed doors, out of sight of anyone, in an attempt to reconcile them into a single law.
Apparently it's not going so well.
CBS news found only 36-percent of Americans approve of the way the president is handling health care - an all-time low. 54-percent disapprove. Congress' numbers are even worse.
But the bulk of the political damage, whichever way this goes, is likely to accrue to the president. He has spent most of his first year in office obsessed with health care reform - many say at the expense of other pressing issues. Now that he's on the verge of getting something, the appetite for what was once a grand idea has soured considerably.
Here’s my question to you: After months of debate, what are the chances health care reform happens?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
How much does Congress feel Americans' pain in recession?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Times are tough - very tough - for millions of Americans... but you could never tell by watching the way Congress spends our tax dollars on themselves.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/01/12/art.pelosi.copenhagen.jpg caption="Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Steny Hoyer (right) and Rep. Henry Waxman at a press conference in Copenhagen last month during the COP15 UN Climate Change Conference."]
CBS News has a stunning report on the all-expense paid trip at least 20 members of Congress made to the Copenhagen climate summit last month.
The bipartisan delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so large - it needed three military jets - two 737s and a Gulfstream Five. Some members brought along their spouses, children... plus there were also senators and staff members who made the trip to Denmark - most of them flying commercial.
Pelosi wouldn't answer any questions about costs or where they all stayed - even though she was the one who decided who went. Her office says only that it will "comply with disclosure requirements."
CBS puts the cost of military jet flying time at nearly $170,000 plus the cost of dozens of commercial flights... hundreds of hotel stays, many at the five-star Marriott... and tens of thousands of dollars in meals.
This is a disgrace - the national unemployment rate is at 10-percent, with employers cutting more jobs than expected last month. People are suffering. In California, Pelosi's home state is faced with a $20-billion deficit. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget plan would force 200-thousand children off low-cost medical insurance... end in-home care for more than 300,000 sick and elderly citizens... and cut income assistance to hundreds of thousands more.
This nation is hurting - but Nancy Pelosi can use three military jets for a December trip to Copenhagen and then refuse to answer any questions about it.
Here’s my question to you: How much do members of Congress feel the pain of the American people in this recession?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
@jackcafferty on Twitter
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