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President Barack Obama's hopes of achieving health care reform have been dealt a body blow by Senator Joe Lieberman, once a Democratic vice-presidential candidate but now one of the party's bêtes noire. The new threat to the centrepiece of his agenda came as Mr Obama's popularity sunk to its lowest level yet with a Rasmussen poll that gave him an approval rating of just 44 per cent – the lowest for any president at this stage of his first term. Mr Lieberman, who became an Independent in 2006 after he failed to win the Democratic party primary but retained his...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Risking the wrath of Democrats, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., threatened Sunday to join Republicans in opposing health care legislation if it permits uninsured individuals as young to 55 to purchase Medicare coverage. Lieberman, whose vote is critical to the bill's prospects, expressed his opposition twice during the day: first in an interview with CBS, and more strongly later, according to Democratic officials, in a private meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid, who is hoping to pass the legislation by Christmas, needs 60 votes to overcome Republican objections, and has been counting on Lieberman to provide...

In the end, it could be Ben Nelson who thwarts ObamaCare. At the very least, he will play a key role in preventing passage of the public option. If that happens, will Bob Vander Plaats then issue a statement praising Terry Branstad for supporting Nelson a decade ago? It would be hypocritical not to.

Washington (CNN) -- Dashing the hopes of Democratic lawmakers Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman signaled he would oppose a health care bill that includes a proposal to expand Medicare to people as young as 55. The independent Connecticut senator has told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, that he would vote against the Medicare at 55 proposal. He also said he would oppose cloture and work with the GOP if it ends up in the final version of the bill, two Democratic sources told CNN Sunday. Unanimous Republican opposition so far means Senate Democrats need all 60 votes in their caucus,...

They believe the liberal base expects them to deliver and will punish them if they don't. Voters are increasingly worried about unemployment, but Democratic leaders in Congress remain obsessed with passing health- care reform. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin was asked recently if a health-care bill would pass the Senate by the end of this month. "It must," he said. "We have to finish it." Still, many in the trenches are uneasy about the sprawling, complex bill they privately acknowledge has no bipartisan support, doesn't seriously tackle soaring costs and will increase insurance premiums. That may explain Majority Leader Harry...

One lesson that Democrats learned from the failure of HillaryCare in 1994 is that they had to buy the silence, if not the outright support, of the business class. They've done this brilliantly by peddling the illusion that ObamaCare will "lower costs" for employers. But slowly as the legislative details become clear, it is dawning on executives of businesses large and small that reform is boiling down to a huge tax increase to finance a gigantic new entitlement. The cost and quality of care are afterthoughts that will both suffer, as a growing roll of medical experts have been writing...

As Senate Democrats hung together last week on a "test" vote on health care reform, their willingness to cut Medicare to fund their colossal plan revealed their willingness to abandon the most vulnerable among us - the frail and elderly. Many among the oldest of the old receive in-home care, something that is essential as it helps reduce hospital admissions or winding up in a nursing home. It also provides access to medical services for those with the added challenge of living in rural communities. Home health care will be a casualty of the current bill as it is slated...

It could not be more clear. Here is new evidence uncovered by Naked Emperor News that reveals President Obama has planned all along to move the United States toward a "single-payer," Universal Health Care System, by expanding Medicare to include people age 55 and up. This video points out that Obama went to Capitol Hill on December 7 to meet with Senate Democrats. Just two days later, Harry Reid announced his grand "compromise" to supposedly drop the "Public Option" but expand Medicare to include those 55 and up. The proof that this "compromise" comes straight from Obama is in the...

When President Obama gave his speech on health care on September 10, he promised that there would be no limit on lifetime benefits under the health care bill: "They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick." Harry Reid didn’t agree evidently. Reid, who is solely responsible for crafting the bill that...

If Obama's Whacko Health Blanket smothers America, the US will not have enough doctors.

As a panelist on Fox News Sunday, Liz Cheney, a potential bright future star of the conservative movement, declared that the job Senate republicans have been doing to derail ObamaCare was "masterful." I agree. I realize there are some conservatives out there who are disappointed that our GOP Senators aren't initiating legislative Armageddon to stop this latest Obamination. They don't want the Senate GOP to be the "party of no" they want the GOP to be the party of HELL NO! I have a great deal of sympathy with that point of view and did have the chance to express...

The Reid bill is really tottering now. "If this thing falls apart, you can look back to today as the tipping point," says a Republican aide in the Senate, echoing what Lamar Alexander notes in the Costa post below. First, there was last night's CNN poll showing 61 percent opposition. Then, there was the devastating CMS report today. "Nobody went to the floor that I could see to defend it on the Democratic side," says the aide. The back-drop for all this is the non-deal that Reid hyped as a break-through earlier this week, only to have it unravel almost...

Remember all the excitement over the "unveiling" of ReidCare in the Senate a few days ago? Harry Reid came as close to gleeful as he ever gets (which means a bit less gloomy than usual) when he announced his new "consensus" healthcare bill which entails expanding MediCare coverage to folks as young as 55? He made it appear that there was a new momentum on a health bill. Only one problem. The Associated Press revealed that ReidCare contains rationing. So if you need end of life care, forget it. Too expensive. This was the argument against the death panels...

An alarming find comes to us via the inveterate investigative blogger Jane Hamsher, often seen on TV news programming. The Senate bill contains a lifetime limit placed on the care that ill patients can receive. The next time an Obamabot mocks your assertion that the legislation would ration care, or if you dare to use the incendiary phrase “death panels” — if a lifetime limit on treatments and drugs isn’t a death sentence, please tell me what is! — you can tell them that Jane, a very liberal blogger, cancer survivor and all-around fine person, has unearthed the following in...

Democratic leaders hit a rough patch Friday in their push for sweeping health care legislation, as they tried to fend off criticism of their proposals from a top Medicare official, Republicans and even members of their own party. Slogging through a 12th day of debate on the legislation, the Senate found itself at an impasse over a proposal to allow imports of low-cost prescription drugs from Canada and other countries. Democratic leaders tried to kill or neuter the proposal, offered by a senior Democrat, Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota. The Medicare official, meanwhile, said that total national health...

Harry Reid's Healthcare Compromise-> One Foot on the Banana Peel The Other in the Grave Much has been said about "the great compromise" that was announced by Harry Reid on earlier this week, most of what has been said has been negative. Much of the negativity is coming from key democrats, the ones most likely to cross over and vote against cloture. Reid is having a very hard time finding the 60 votes he needs to cut off debate and allow an up or down vote on Obamacare. Now here's the fun part, there is no real compromise. that's why...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) latest "compromise" health care bill is 11th-hour legislative sausage that was made on the fly and includes ideas dating at least to the Clinton administration, says the Washington Post. Most significantly, though, Sen. Reid's bill is a dramatic step toward a single-payer health care system, even if the public option is not on the table, says the Post: * Sen. Reid's latest compromise allows uninsured individuals over 55 to buy into Medicare. * That policy brings with it numerous problems, the core of which are higher costs to taxpayers, squeezing individuals out of their...

With the House having passed its $1 trillion dollar-plus heath care bill and the Senate poised to approve its own $850 billion version as early as Christmas, a broad rewrite of America’s health care system — encompassing nearly 20% of the U.S. economy — could be close at hand. If the Senate approves its version, which is expected given the Democrats’ 60-seat majority, the package will have to be merged with legislation approved last month by the House. But similarities between the two bills are starting to emerge. Here, David M. Drucker of the newspaper Roll Call provides a rundown...

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed support Thursday for a Senate Democratic proposal to expand Medicare, raising prospects that the two chambers of Congress can work out differences on health-care legislation. The proposal would open Medicare to some people ages 55 to 64, and is a key feature of a deal among senior Senate Democrats that would abandon efforts to enact a big government-run health-insurance program. The deal would also empower the government's Office of Personnel Management to contract with private insurers to offer new low-cost insurance plans. The deal is a key difference between the Senate bill and...

In an interview on my radio show Wednesday, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl underscored the fact that Senate Democrats do not have the 60 votes they need to pass Obamacare, and that reports about the inevitability of Obamcare passing are part of the Democrat's strategy. (The transcript of the interview is here.) Kyl asserted that Harry Reid routinely announces, and then the MSM echoes, statements about the inevitability of the bill's passing, but then reality catches up. This is happening again today as the premature reports of an agreement to expand Medicare to those 55 and older are exposed as more...