Democrats call on Enzi, Barrasso to negotiate in good faith

Wyoming senators make short list for President Obama’s health care summit

CASPER – The Wyoming Democratic Party calls on Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso to make honest efforts to negotiate in good faith with Democrats to find solutions to the health care crisis during the White House summit on Thursday.

Senate Republicans announced Tuesday that Enzi and Barrasso would be two of the seven senators the party will send to the summit scheduled by President Obama to break through the congressional log jam on health care reform.

“We encourage Senators Enzi and Barrasso to go to the summit with open minds, bring their own plans for comprehensive health insurance reform, and engage in honest negotiations instead of playing politics,” said Wyoming Democratic Party State Chair Leslie Petersen. “The people of Wyoming and this nation demand and deserve nothing less.”

Petersen noted that a poll released Tuesday by the widely respected Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that key components of health reform legislation receive broad, bipartisan support and that 58 percent of the public would be “angry” or “disappointed” if Congress failed to pass health reform. [http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/posr022310nr.cfm]

The poll showed that 76 percent of Americans support “reforming the way health insurance works,” while more than two-thirds support providing tax credits to small business, creating a health insurance exchange/marketplace, helping close the Medicare “doughnut hole,” expanding high risk insurance pools, and providing financial help for low/middle income people.

“There is strong support for many aspects of health insurance reform, and a widespread expectation that Congress must act now on health reform,” Petersen said. “We urge Senators Enzi and Barrasso to rise above the petty partisanship of those who calculate that it’s better for them politically to block solutions than to address this crisis. As President Obama said in his Inaugural Address, quoting Scripture, ‘The time has come to set aside childish things.’”

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