Dodd, a Democrat, made the observation at the end of a press conference outside his Hartford office this afternoon.<\/p>\n
The main topic was Dodd’s bill to overhaul the financial regulatory system, but with a major vote looming in the House, the conversation naturally gravitated toward health care.<\/p>\n
Dodd said Democrats “really left the door open for people to speculate what was in it – or what could be in it and that ended up having a huge impact.”<\/p>\n
But he also predicted that once the bill passes, it could boost the fortunes of Democrats running for re-election (a category that does not, of course, Dodd, who announced earlier this year that his 30-year career in the U.S. Senate will come to an end when his current term expires.)<\/p>\n
“There’ll be a lot to talk about in terms of positive achievements in this bill,” Dodd said, citing the closing of the so-called “doughnut hole” for Medicare recipients. “The death panels are not here…the cutting of any guaranteed benefits under Medicare [have] never been here at all in this bill…there’s been a lot of misinformation.”<\/p>\n
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Dodd said he doesn’t buy the conventional wisdom that Obama’s entire presidency is wrapped up in the success or failure of the helth care bill. He noted that no one issue can dominate today’s 24-hour news cycle forever. <\/p>\n
“If the Obama crowd thinks if they just win this, they’re home free, they’re making a mistake,” Dodd said. “Those who think if they lose this they’re done forever, they’re making a mistake too.”<\/p>\n
Prompted by a questoin from the AP’s Susan Haigh, Dodd also addressed a $100 million allocation in the bill that Gov. M. Jodi Rell hopes to use to help fund a new UConn hospital. The money isn’t guaranteed to come to Connecticut: At least 14 other states could apply for the grant, Dodd said.<\/p>\n
But he also said he is confident the money will remain in the health care bill, even if though its not a sure thing that it will wind up at UConn.<\/p>\n
“I understand people have concerns about some carve out for some individual state,” he said. “This is is not at all.”<\/p>\n
Oh, and financial reform? Dodd said the mark-up on the bill starts Monday, adding “I’m determined to try and get it done before this Congress concludes its business,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dodd, a Democrat, made the observation at the end of a press conference outside his Hartford office this afternoon. The main topic was Dodd’s bill to overhaul the financial regulatory system, but with a major vote looming in the House, the conversation naturally gravitated toward health care. Dodd said Democrats “really left the door open for people to speculate what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4000,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}