http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/homenews/189080-pelosi-i-dont-even-know-why-romney-was-on-that-showNovember 03, 2013, 05:13 pm
Pelosi: Obama a president of 'great vision'
By Mario Trujillo
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday dismissed Mitt Romney’s statement that President Obama’s second term is rotting away.
Pelosi said she missed Romney’s appearance on “Meet the Press,” during which the former GOP presidential candidate said Obama’s broken promise that everyone who liked their healthcare plan could keep it has undermined Obama’s presidency.
“I don’t even know why Romney was on that show myself,” she said in an interview on MSNBC. “I want to know what about the future —what about the future. But the fact is that President Obama is a president of great vision, of great knowledge, of great judgment.”
Pelosi noted that Obama led the effort to overhaul the healthcare system, an effort in which former presidents have failed.
The Associated Press reported Sunday that at least 3.5 million people who buy insurance on the individual market have received cancellation notices for existing plans. The administration has consistently noted that the individual market makes up 5 percent of people.
“For 95 percent of the American people who have health insurance that is the case,” Pelosi said. “For the small number in the private market, they will do better.”
For people with preexisting conditions, Pelosi called the healthcare law a “godsend, emphasis on the God.”
Pelosi predicted that the healthcare law, and its botched rollout, will not be an issue in the 2014 midterm elections.
“I don’t even think of it as a political issue,” she said. “But for the American people this will be a giant plus.”
The minority leader reiterated her point that Democrats have a better chance of winning back the House in the midterms because fallout hitting Republicans due to the government shutdown.
Heading into the House-Senate budget conference that has a December deadline to come up with a spending plan, Pelosi said revenue will need to be on the table and predicted Obama and others in the conference would hold firm.
“I think we will all stay there together,” she said. “If you have revenue on the table, you can come to a bigger agreement to reduce the deficit and grow the economy to do so in a fiscally sound way.”
Pelosi said a number of Democratic proposals — including immigration reform, the employment nondiscrimination act and reopening the government — have only needed a small percentage of Republicans to pass, but are usually prevented from coming to the floor.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has required Democratic votes on four occasions this year.
“We do help him, but he has never come to me for help,” she said. “I have always volunteered it.”
