If only Joe Liebermann could land a few punches on Obamacare.
Make sure it goes down in flames.
Posted on 10/28/2009 5:25:37 AM PDT by myknowledge
According to CBS and other media reports, “Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) said Tuesday that he would support a Republican filibuster of a health care bill that includes a public option.” This is a serious blow to the passage of any Obamacare bill including a public option, yet the blow may not be fatal.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) yesterday announced a deal and it is notable that he was not accompanied by any member of the secret team negotiating a deal on Obamacare including Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.
The fact that none of the other negotiators were there for the big rollout of Obamacare is evidence that there was not strong agreement on the details of the bill Reid allegedly sent to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate. This deal is on life support and does not yet have broad based support. If Senator Reid insists on retaining the public option in the Obamacare bill to placate the far left, he may doom passage of the bill.
The procedure being used to pass Obamacare does provide Senator Reid with some wiggle room to pass the bill, even with a public option. First of all, because the details of the deal are still secret, Reid retains the discretion to remove any provision from the bill before he decides to roll it out on the Senate Floor as early as next week. Reid’s announced deal is a version of the public option with states being allowed to “opt out.” As discussed on The Foundry today, “whether it is first implemented through a co-op, or a trigger, or an opt out, the end goal is the same: government-run health care for all Americans.” It will be very hard to opt out for states and this may become de facto public plan for most states and this permutation of the public option seems to be objectionable to Senator Lieberman.
Next, it is important to remember that once Senator Reid rolls an Obamacare bill on the Senate floor, there will be amendments offered to tweak the bill to get support at 60 votes for a package. Reid needs 60 votes to shut off debate or opponents of Obamacare could use a filibuster to defeat and debate the bill to failure. If Senator Lieberman or another moderate is pledging opposition to the bill, Senator Reid could try to use the amendment process to buy votes for a final plan. Also, Reid could use the amendment process to remove objectionable aspects of a public plan, or the public plan as a whole, to garner the support of just enough Senators to shut off debate.
CBS quotes Lieberman with some wiggle room for support for the bill with a public option even thought he clearly stated that “if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage.” Lieberman said, “I haven’t decided and can’t decide [on cloture] until I’ve actually seen the physical bill, and I’m not going to be able to see that until it comes back from CBO having been scored. I’m looking for what the costing is on certain areas, and I’ll make up my mind on the basis of that, I’m not establishing a line in the sand or a number.” It seems that if Senator Reid either removes the public option from the bill or modifies it so as to remove the costly aspects of the plan, he may secure enough votes to pass Obamacare with out a full blown public option.
The cost aspect of other aspects of an Obamacare bill might be objectionable Lieberman or one of the other 12 Senators that caucus with the Democrats who opposed debating the $247 billion Doc Fix bill including Democrat Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virgina and Ron Wyden of Oregon. That bill failed on a filibuster and Obamacare may seems doomed to die on a filibuster if Senator Ried submits a bill with a public option. Senator Harry Reid will attempt over the next week to find a cure for Obamacare and the removal of the public option may be the only medicine that will work.
If only Joe Liebermann could land a few punches on Obamacare.
Make sure it goes down in flames.
why not call it what it is
Govt run health care, why call it what the left wants?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
First time in history the race cars shoved a pace car off the track.
Posted October 27th, 2009 at 9.24am by Conn Carroll
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that the health care legislation he is drafting will include a government-run health insurance plan, or as many on the left like to call it “the public option.” The new wrinkle that Reid has thrown into the proposal is an “opt out” clause which would require states to pass legislation by 2014 rejecting participation in the federal government run plan. None of the committees in the House or Senate ever even voted on this new opt out scheme. But that does not really matter. Whether it is first implemented through a co-op, or a trigger, or an opt out, the end goal is the same: government-run health care for all Americans.
Hotel Harry Reid: Reid provided very few details for his “opt out” proposal, but here is what we do know: the government run plan would be available on the first day that major provisions of Obamacare would take effect in 2013, and states would have until 2014 to pass legislation declining participation in the program. This means that a one-vote majority of obstructionists in one chamber of a state legislature, by refusing to act, can consign a state’s residents to an eternity of government-run health care. In 17 states Democrats control both houses of the legislature and the state house. In another 24, Democrats control at least one legislative chamber or the governor’s mansion. That leaves a total of only 9 states where Republicans run the entire show — Texas, Utah, South Carolina, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Idaho, Florida, and Georgia. That means Americans in 41 states are all but guaranteed to have no choice but to endure the government run health plan. What opt out really means is: You’re already checked in, and if you don’t do so by 2014, you can never leave.
The Co-op Co-opt: Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) have both pushed slightly different plans they both call co-ops. However, they both share the same fundamental flaws: advantageous federal funding and regulation designed to tilt the playing field in their direction. Heritage fellows Edmund Haislmaier, Dennis Smith, and Nina Owcharenko have explained why this model is guaranteed to fail: “Simply calling some form of a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) a “cooperative,” for instance, would be only another type of public plan in disguise. … One need look no further than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to see how GSEs can distort the market and leave taxpayers with huge liabilities. Decades of market distortions generated by their implicit government backing, compounded by the effects of repeated political meddling by Congress, put those GSEs at the very epicenter of the mortgage market collapse that triggered the current financial crisis and recession.”
The Trigger Trap: A trigger is a legislative tool that would put in place automatic benchmarks that if not met, would immediately unleash the government-run system into the market. For example, if 95% of Americans as defined by the bill, don’t have adequate health coverage by a certain date, the public option would be “triggered.” What a trigger does is hold off the tough decision until future, uncertain circumstances. The public option would essentially become law today, but not go into effect until an undetermined time when economic conditions could be even worse. Had Congress enacted a trigger to save Clintoncare, the trigger would have forced states to implement HMOs at exactly the time everyone was moving away from that overly rigid version of managed care. We don’t want to repeat that mistake. It is a travesty of democracy because it allows legislators to vote for a plan now, but passes the blame for the catastrophic consequences onto their successors.
Throughout the legislative process the White House has coyly denied that the establishment of a government run health plan was essential to their health care plan. But in 2003, President Barack Obama told the AFL-CIO: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. … And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.” Opt out, the trigger, and co ops will not get to government run health care immediately. They will all take time to develop. But no matter what road they try and bring Americans down, the destination is always the same: everybody in out, nobody out; that is, was, and always will be Obama’s ultimate goal.
Source: Morning Bell: No Matter What You Call It, It’s Still Just Government-Run Health Care
All this talk of a filibuster is just media hype. The Republicans don’t have the nerve to filibuster and even if they did their numbers are so thin one or two Senators would cave after the MSM gets through ripping into them as obstructionist racist haters.
Lieberman is possibly just beginning negotiation for some could old Connecticut pork. I would hold the applause on his position until he actually votes.
Reid cited “overwhleming support for a public option” when he had his little presser. Is there a credible poll that shows this? I haven’t seen one. Just bold face lying.
Another way of putting it:
Why enable the left to do what they always do - hide their agenda?
If the left were honest about their goals and their opinion of the individual, they’d get 10% of the vote. This is why they have to be DISHONEST about their agenda.
Here’s hoping Obamacare gets the same treatment anyone over 50 with a chronic illness would get under the plan. Pull the plug on it.
Hang in there Joe L., you’re a liberal to the core but you sometimes get one right.
I think you are being needlessly negative. The pubbies will hold, it's the Democrats you have to worry about. If anything the MSM wants a horse race and there really isn't one on this. Reid needs alot more than 1 or 2 votes, more like 10-12 and pressure from his leftwing base is forcing him to keep the public option in.
THAT's what he meant to say.
Nobody but wants it.
That’s retarded.
You may be right but the media firestorm will be all consuming. I personally don’t think they have the backbone to withstand it. You can bet there is a plan in place for the media and a ground game of downtrodden put upon uninsured protesters designed to make any filibuster participant look like a heartless racist. Count on it.
That’s hardball politics. Republicans are notoriously bad at that game.
My read of the situation is the opposition just needs to delay until after 3 NOV. Once the results from VA, NJ and NY come in, the blue dogs will know what their future looks like if they entitle the Socialists with their wet dream. My guess is 3 NOV will effectively spell the end to healthcare and cap n tax. Pretty sure it will derail amnesty also. If McDonnel wins by 15% or more the blue dogs will be castrated.
Latest poll puts Corzine ahead in NJ so it won’t be a clean sweep (if it’s even close the Dems can manufacture enough votes). If The Dem wins in NY 23rd the Democrat leadership will be able to claim a partial victory with the pickup in the traditionally Republican district. And the stupid party is up there right now helping them do just that by putting everything they have behind Scozzafava even though her candidacy is deader than a doornail.
I think zero and Pelosi have reached critical mass on this. The public is soured not just on the various “plans”, but also by the high volume, the maneuvering and the breadth of the dispute. I think most no longer have confidence that whatever comes out of it will be no good or else there wouldn’t have been so much controversy in the first place.
What a soap opera this is. All of these vipers posturing and backstabbing to get some pork. BTW, the most recent polling Ive seen does show a small plurality in favor of a public option.
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