Friends and foes of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh can converge on his home to arrange for his move out of the country, which he said he’d do if President Obama’s health care bill passes.
Senior White House officials David Alexrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs said the long-awaited Obama health care reform bill is expected to pass as early as this week.
“We’ll have the votes when the House votes, I think, within the next week,” Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Whoever sits here at this time next week, I think will not be talking about health care as a proposal, but as the law of the land.”
Staunch Republicans countered they will do everything possible to defeat the bill before it has an opportunity to be signed into law. Limbaugh, who hosts an ultra-popular daily radio show with a far-right bent, told listeners that he would move out of the country if Obama’s health care reform bill passed.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make it difficult for them, if not impossible, to pass the bill,” John Boehner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Axelrod, a Chicago-based adviser who followed Obama to the White House, was asked by Tom Brokaw on “Meet The Press” whether Republicans would be able to run against health care in the 2010 elections. Axelrod pretty much told Republicans, in the words of Clint Eastwood: “Go ahead, make my day.”
“If the Republican Party wants to go out and say to that child who now has insurance or say to that small business that will get tax credits this year if he signs the bill to help their employees get health care. If they want to say to them, ‘You know what? We’re actually gonna take that away from you. We don’t think that’s such a good idea.’ I say,’ Let’s have that fight. Make my day. I’m ready to have that.’ And every member of Congress ought to be willing to have that debate as well,” he said.
Questions remain if the public option will be included and in what form, and what the ultimate price tag will be. –terry shropshire
