Obama's Health Care Flip Flop

The news wires are reporting that President Obama intends to use the controversial reconciliation budgetary process to ram his bloated health care bill through the United States Senate.

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The process essentially moves the goalposts closer for Democrats in the middle of the game. Rather than requiring them to get a super majority in overcoming the Republican filibuster of the bill, they now need only a simply majority to pass the bill using a budgetary mechanism that is reserved for passing massive omnibus budgets.

It's all inside baseball in some ways, but the difference is that rather than passing the health care bill with a meaningful consensus, the Dems plan will force a health care bill on the American people that most Americans do not want.

The move will surely bring its set of political perils for Democrats, but for our purposes it’s notable that the decision is inconsistent with what the President had previously said of the process.

As the video below demonstrates, in numerous instances, the President said that he would pass health care reform only if it was supported by broad consensus. Assuming what he said was true, it seems the Obama of today is more interested in playing politics than in building general agreement on an urgent issue.