US President Barack Obama on Saturday resumed his push to overhaul the health care system, telling a Congressional Black Caucus conference that there comes a time when “the cup of endurance runs over.”
“We have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. We’ve been waiting since the days of Harry Truman,” he said in remarks at the caucus foundation’s annual dinner. “We’ve been waiting since Johnson and Nixon and Clinton.”
“We cannot wait any longer,” Obama said.
He spent the past week largely focused on global and economic issues in meetings with world leaders in New York and Pittsburgh.
At the G20 economic summit that wrapped up Friday in Pennsylvania, Obama told a story about an unnamed foreign leader who privately told the president he didn’t understand the at-times contentious debate over changing the health care system.
“He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you. That doesn’t make sense to me,’” Obama said, quoting the world leader he declined to identify.
The reference to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was to signs some people have waved outside of often testy town hall meetings this summer where lawmakers discussed Obama’s health care plan.
In the speech, Obama described his plan as one that would not require people with coverage to change anything but would make health insurance affordable for the millions of people who don’t have any. Republicans dispute those claims.
The Senate Finance Committee is in the process of amending a health care bill introduced by its chairman, Senator Max Baucus.
Before becoming president, Obama was the only senator in the all-Democratic caucus, which now has 42 members. He wasn’t particularly active in the group and isn’t especially close other members.
Animosity toward the president and his policies has bubbled up in recent weeks, most notably with Republican Representative Joe Wilson shouting “You lie!” at Obama during the president’s recent health care speech to Congress.
Democrats from former US president Jimmy Carter on down have blamed the increasingly harsh criticism of Obama on racism. Obama says it’s not racism but an intense debate over the proper role of government.
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