Assuming this is what passes (much negotiating still to go), I wonder how many states will opt out -- and for how many years they will stay out.

I'll bet it is just a few in both cases.

Were any of the GOP Governors who chose not to take the stimulus funds able to make their decision stick after they got reamed for rejecting it? I don;t think so. I think each and every one rescinded his decision.

This will be the same.

Lieberman has said he'll support a filibuster of anything with a public option.

Death knell.

What a shyster this guy is. He deserves to be stripped of all of his seniority and chairmanships.

The number of doctors and medical professionals I speak to who think that the public option is the only viable alternative is way more than the number who oppose.

This guy deserves to be voted out ASAP.

On Lieberman: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...-reids_b_335780.html

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like another wasted opportunity to reform heath care.

If you cannot find 60 Senate votes to get a bill through WITH public option,
and you cannot find 60 Senate votes to get a bill through WITHOUT public option,
then the opportunity was never there to begin with.

Substitute "public option" with something else, anything, and the statement will still hold true.

OTOH, a public option with "opt-out" will be the greatest thing that ever happened to the Democratic party.

One or two election cycles with a stronger Democratic majority and we might even get a proper single-payer plan!

quote:

Originally posted by Axtremus:
On Lieberman: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...-reids_b_335780.html

Reading the of machinations going on in the Senate makes me want to throw up. These people disgust me.

They're all a bunch of immoral whores.

quote:

Originally posted by OperaTenor:

They're all a bunch of immoral whores.

That's a slap in the face to all the immoral whores out there.

Whores provide a valuble social service, and are insulted by comparison with some people in Congress.

That said, I never understood why the far left of the Dem party chose the "public option" to become the sinking point of the whole debate, esp. when Obama said it was only a "sliver" of the bill. (Of course, the real reason is that the "public option" proponents really want single-payer, and saw this as a wedge towards that goal, not towards insurance reform itself. A VAT in exchange for single payer is in fact an interesting idea, but that is not what was on the table.)

There are no republican votes, because even the good republican ideas (e.g. tort reform) were summarily ignored in the heady rush of thinking there were 60 Democratic votes for a public option.

There were never any Republican votes in the first place Jeffrey, tort reform or otherwise.

You could have added in a pony and a go cart for each Republican Congressman and there still would have been no Republican votes.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
There were never any Republican votes in the first place Jeffrey, tort reform or otherwise.

You could have added in a pony and a go cart for each Republican Congressman and there still would have been no Republican votes.

I would agree. The Republicans plain don't want any reform, tort or otherwise. They did nothing on tort reform when they were the majority, they have not push any amendment to introduce tort reform, and they not indicated any desire to bargain for tort reform with anything.

Steve -

quote:

There were never any Republican votes in the first place Jeffrey, tort reform or otherwise.

You could have added in a pony and a go cart for each Republican Congressman and there still would have been no Republican votes.

Can we have a confirm on this?

A health bill with tort reform and with no public option could have gotten both R Maine votes and maybe the Michigan guy. I am guessing, but I see no reason why that would not be true.

Maybe Lieberman is a shill for the insurance companies. How many other Dems are shills for the tort lawyers? All countries with universal health care have what we would call tort reform to lower social costs. It is a good idea regardless of R votes.

And, for the record, I am still for most of the current bill passing.

I don't think this is the bill for tort reform, even if it is needed.

President Obama has already said he is prepared to consider tort reform. And since it deals with more than just medical issues, it really is a separate issue. Plus, if it were included in the health reform package, the reform bill would have also had to have gone to the Judiciary Committees in both house. Another and significantly major complicating factor in an already complicated process.

What do you think the tort reform in this context would look like, Jeffrey?

As for Steve's assertion, 160 GOP amendments were included to the Senate HELP Committee Bill, but not one Republican on the Committee voted for it. I suspect if I were to look it up, I would find a similar thing in the other four committee bills.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo...islation-on-part.php

A similar thing happened last February on the stimulus bill, of course. There were close to 200 GOP amendments to it as it went through the process and it ended with 3 GOP senators voting for it -- no other GOP votes in either house. And one of those Senators who voted for it was run out of the party within a couple of weeks because of that vote.

It simply is not worth trying to placate the GOP -- their actions show they have no desire to govern on this issue or, it seems, any other. They just to kill it this bill and any other Obama initiative.

I am not sure you are correct about tort reform bringing on the two Maine senators. Senator Snowe's vote on the Finance Committee bill was a single issue vote -- to kill the public option. Given as hard as they worked to get her vote, no doubt she could have held out for tort reform rather than just trying to kill the public option. But she didn't.