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 ...
It's completely overstepping any and all legal and moral grounds. It's unconstitutional.
Don't trust your mother's life to the corrupt Federal government.
“Wrote earlier he would give in. “
Reid still doesn’t have 60 votes, and as for Lieberman, he is a partial-birth-infanticide senator.
Sure, why not? The Stupak amendment only prevents money authorized or appropriated by government from being used to pay for abortions.
With no public option or medicare expansion, the Stupak amendment is largely beside the point.
In concept, the essence of the government takeover of health care is to require everyone to purchase health care insurance and to require health insurance providers to offer insurance through an "exchange."
A government regulatory body (i.e., a leftwinger or a commission of leftwingers) will provide the details of what the terms and conditions of health care insurance will be in order to be eligible to be offered through an "exchange."
I would be quite surprised if, at that point in time (probably a couple of years away) when the regulators get put in place and propose regulations, that health care insurance offered through the exchange did not include requirements for coverage for abortion, sex-change operations, free condoms, etc. etc.
Since government funds are not being used to purchase insurance through the exchange, the Stupak amendment would not apply.
Drop the entire bill. If you don’t you will be sent home without your pension or healthcare goodies and possibly sent to jail.
And your flavor of surrender monkey was bleating like sheep that the public option would be in the final Senate bill. Elections have consequences , of course they are going to get a bill out of the Congress, it was always a matter of pushing to get it as watered down as possible. Did you really expect NO bill to come out of all this. What fantasy world are you mopes and defeatists living in? 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. Get the popcorn and watch the Democrat party implode, so try and keep yourself from falling into the fetal position at the first sign of resistance.
God Bless Joe!!. He is Presidential timber!!! They didn’t have the 60 votes and he stuck it up theirs. He is a great American and we will have scools named after this wonderful man. Way to go JOE!!!
That's an excellent and obvious point that I missed.
This will pass with bi-partisan support, thanks to Snowe and possibly Graham.
In it’s ENTIRETY. It sucks KILL IT.
“Goodbye to the America we loved.”
Yup. Now we have to get it back.
Amen! That is where the action is, where they can hide what they do. This bill is so high profile it will be hard to conceal.
I keep wondering why they even bother with the charade. Why doesn’t their president just create another department like the EPA or DHS for national health care and just ram it down our throats? Hmmmmm... what would he call it I wonder?
Only in Bizarro world. I say that as someone who respects some of Joe's stands. However, he's a liberal with an occasional attack of morality and/or common sense.
So, ultimately, the “exchange” will be a government puppet that requires private money to fund abortions (by virtue of paying premiums into this “exchange”) instead of money coming direct from the government? All they’re doing is cutting out the middle man then (.gov?), and it’s just tax dollars re-named “mandatory premiums” (and thus obsolete Stupak?)
I don't trust Lieberman either way.
What about the lifetime limits for cronic care?
If you want REAL reform, make it mandatory that the congress and senate and ALL legal residents have the same plan.
The member of the congress and senate could care less about what they are making mandatory for the common people as they have the best that they can burden the tax payers with.
Hope you're right, but I fear it's not the case.
We all read the headlines Pelosi didn't have the votes, and yet she did.
I want to be proven wrong and hope I am, however, come days before Christmas, the Health Bill will be passed.
Amnesty in 2010 along with the VAT and Cap and Trade.
All signed and sealed before the Nov., election.
Call me evil... but the first liberal that hoorays for this and says “Thank God, I just lost my health insurance with my job” will be (gleefully) told that it doesn’t kick in until 2013. Oh, and expect their taxes to go up now, in ANTICIPATION of needing the funds for this healthcare bill. Oh yeah, and since employers are going to have to pay for every individual they hire or pay a fine, imagine how many jobs will be gone because of the overwhelming burden of employers.
Yep, I just cannot wait to rub it in their dumb little faces. If I have to put up with this monstrosity I can at least have a little fun.
The hospital system I work for has its own Wellness program with financial incentives (e.g., cutting health insurance premiums) for passing their metabolic syndrome tests.
Anyone think a government bureaucrat can come up with a fair, empirical and logical program like that?
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