Posted on 12/14/2009 4:20:21 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Major Garrett’s in the hall outside the Democratic caucus room and tweeting the word from Tom Harkin. Can’t really call this good news, as it makes passage much more likely, so let’s call it slightly-better-than-worst-case-scenario news. No more public option:
Asked by a reporter if the Medicare buy-in will be pulled out, Harkin said “looks that way,” before praising a Democratic health care bill without the two public option compromises.
“There’s enough good in this bill that even without those two, we gotta move,” he said. “All the insurance reforms, all the stuff we wrote so hard for prevention and wellness in there, the workforce development issues that we have in there, the reimbursement based on quality not on quantity — there’s good stuff in this bill. It’s a giant step forward, changing the paradigm of health care in America.”
Lieberman said he can (read: will) vote for the bill without the public plan provisions. Reaction, straight off the top of my head: (1) Kind of surprising that neither Snowe nor Collins defected to bail Reid out, eh? Now that he’s back to 60-ish, I wonder if they or Nelson, Bayh, Lincoln, etc. will suddenly ramp up their own demands. (2) The Democrats are so frantic to pass something at this point — e.g., there was a rumor floated earlier today that Emanuel was pressuring Reid to use reconciliation — that Pelosi will almost certainly want to ping-pong the Senate bill. Will the absence of a public option convince Blue Dogs who voted no on the House bill to vote yes this time or will the gruesome polling scare them away?
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
The system put into place was meant to stop a simple majority (the House) from simply putting in whatever it could pass.
The Senate is the stop-gap on the simple Democratic rule that the House represents.
Even though they hold all the cards, the system itself is giving them fits.
+++++++++++++++
This is a historically beautiful thing, is it not?
There is no such thing as “dropping the public option!”
Its the reason for the whole shebang. They’ll just sneek it in with ‘trigger’ clauses.
“The camel’s nose, and a number of other body parts, have been inside the tent for decades. Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP are just a few of the programs which, collectively have already socialized more than a third of our health care system. The very worst that can happen with Obamacare as they start to pare it back in search of 60 votes in an incremental deterioration in an already unsustainable situation.”
Interesting points.
I would say though that the MANDATES are the tipping point that takes us inevitably to socialized medicine. The insurance with all the regulations is unaffordable and so we end up moving more and more people on the Govt teat.
The endgame is healthcare freedom or healthcare socialism... the history is not written. WE write it.
Amen to that!
I wonder why the insurance companies are not going after this more aggressively - like they did when Klintoon tried to ram it through.
“This was a defeat for Obama, pure and simple. His leftwing base is going to go into orbit over no public option and those BlueDogs gone anyways. The Senate Bill will not reconcile with the House, like oil and water. And contrary to urban myth here, it NOT simply 51 votes after reconciliation. The final billl is subject to all the rules of the Senate including filibuster.”
From your lips to God’s ears.
“I think Lieberman still has a big problem with federally funded abortions. As an Orthodox Jew this is not something he can abide or compromise about.”
Joe Lieberman was excommunicated by a Rabbinical court.
Please!
He already compromised himself on that issue...when he ran with algore.
Lieberman sold his soul....then.
Thanks for reminding me about that.
I missed that. When did it happen?
FRegards,
Unfortunately, there probably will not be another election in the US.
In 2000.
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