Andanh.com

Until recently, one of the biggest raps against Barack Obama from conservatives was his delicate dance around any issue that might upset his core constituents. How can he claim a break from "politics as usual," they said, if he wasn't willing to upset the left? They can't say that anymore. Now they say he's flip-flopped.

That's OK. If you want to please everybody, you don't belong in politics. Obama's bigger worry is the old slogan of liberal commentator Jim Hightower, a former Texas officeholder: "There ain't nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow line and dead armadillos."

In recent weeks, the likely Democratic presidential nominee has taken that risky road. He has softened or abandoned his earlier positions on a parade of issues, including wiretaps, abortion, trade with Mexico and Canada, gun control and public funding of his own campaign.

Liberal bloggers such as Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post have howled that Obama is selling out the left. But viewed another way, he's buying into the middle. He's reaching for what Colin Powell has called the "sensible center," that big, broad terrain in the political middle where most American voters live.

Ironically, his best ally in this venture is presumptive Republican opponent Sen. John McCain, whose supporters have cast Obama as a "flip-flopper," as they branded Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Physicians and patients participating in the Medicare program face uncertainty about the future of Medicare. As Kansas experiences a shortage in health care professionals, the largest group of health care consumers -- the elderly population -- continues to expand. Add to this combination an automatic annual cut, triggered by federal law, in payments to physicians who serve Medicare beneficiaries, and you have a full-blown crisis in the health care system.

Every year, Congress votes on whether to delay impending federal reimbursement cuts to physicians who serve Medicare patients, and every year since 2003 that I've had the chance, I have voted to delay these cuts. Kansas seniors should have access to the highest quality health care professionals and services, and health care professionals should be encouraged, rather than discouraged, to serve our Medicare beneficiaries.

Last month, the prospect of delaying physician-payment cuts in the Medicare program looked promising. A bipartisan bill was drafted and would have delayed the payment cuts for a year and a half. Had the Senate passed this bipartisan bill, it would have been quickly signed into law and would have gone into effect prior to the scheduled July 1 cuts.

It was disappointing, to say the least, that acting against the best interest of the country, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the American Medical Association brokered a deal that took this proposed bipartisan bill off the Senate floor. Rather than voting on a bill that was all but guaranteed to pass into law, Reid called a vote on a controversial bill, H.R. 6331, the night before Congress adjourned for the Fourth of July recess.

H.R. 6331, which the Senate ultimately approved Wednesday, was considered controversial because a number of employer organizations have expressed concern that the legislation will cut payments to Medicare plans that offer coverage to their retired workers. In response to this concern, the Bush administration issued a veto threat on H.R. 6331, thus requiring a vote of two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to override the veto before the July 1 payment cuts went into effect.