Money Talks, Bullshit walks. (The health thread.)

I'm not really sure what you mean by all that. Harry Reid is doing the best he can to get the votes to pass this bill. That means making a bill that 60 Senators will vote for. And reconciliation, getting even 50 Senators to vote for this bill, likely would not have had the public option, either. At least, that's what political analyst Jonathan Bernstein claims. He reckons that the votes just are not there for a public option.

I can't really speak to the health insurance lobbyists, since I don't have data on that, but lobbyists aren't going to go away. And I mean, how dare Lieberman try to protect his state's number one industry. How dare he.

And I really do think that Kennedy would want this bill passed. It wouldn't be the end of the fight, and maybe Kennedy could have talked down the abortion clause, but I think this is the beginning.

It's much easier to use reconciliation to amend a bill after it's passed than to pass the bill in the first place. And we may have a Congress that can get the votes, but we do not have them now.

You can argue about the whys and the hows (which would be about who's paying whom to sink this bill), but either way, we don't have the votes. That's all I was trying to say.

I don't think the Congress will pass this bill and let the issue slide. I think people aren't going to just let this go. But passing this bill is an important first step.

As for it not being landmark, it's the most significant piece of health care reform in the past something or other years (read it somewhere, and cannot cite it, sorry), and it's close to actually being voted on, since the Senate voted for cloture the other night.

Harry Reid is the physical manifestation of the Democratic party's spinelessness. He's the backbone (haha irony) of the entire current DNC Senate plan:

1: We need Republican votes to appear non-partisan for some reason. COMPROMISE WITH REPUBLICANS
2: No Republicans join with us.
3: COMPROMISE HARDER
4: Repeat step 3 until we pass something the Republicans would've wanted in the first place.

Note the similarity to the plan when they didn't have majorities.

Fun fact: The Senate only needs 51 votes to pass most legislation. And with a Democratic VP for the ties, that means...

Every single article and speech on the subject would make you believe you need 60, but 50 votes and a filibuster would've solved this a lot quicker and more cleanly than the endless "hunt for 60" that's more than likely just a smokescreen so they can pretend to do stuff while not harming their bribe companies.

You're actually...

People actually...



45 thousand people die each year in this country to lack of insurance. How dare he indeed continue that just for what is at best glorified pork-barrel spending?

I'm pretty sure we need Independents, moderate Democrats and conservative Democrats more than we need Republicans, and the Senate compromises have been trying to attract anyone.

Dude, I know how the Senate works. I understand that you need only 51 votes to pass something, and Biden can break a 50-50 vote. I'm not dense! ...Completely dense!

As in the blog I linked to, I'm saying we didn't have fifty votes for a strong public option. We would have ended up with a very similar bill AND would have had to put up with about the same amount of time of filibusters. I'm not really sure how effective filibusters are, but basically business grinds to a stand still until the Senator cedes his speaking time.

And I'm not sure we had 50 votes in the first place, so the filibusters might have made Senators switch sides to kill the bill.

I'm just saying that Lieberman is looking out for his constituents, who happen to work for health insurance companies. That's why we freaking have Congressfolk from each state, so the national body of Congress will be comprised of members protecting their own state interests as well as national interest.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't rather Congressfolk vote to protect every American, but I am saying that I can understand why Lieberman is dragging his feet.

Either way, the Senate already passed cloture. So now they really do need 50 votes.

Every analysis I've seen has said that issues like the public option and Medicare expansion and all those things that could bring noticable improvement would have trouble getting 60 votes, but not "not even close" trouble, just "can't quite get there". As to the effects of a filibuster, well, Congress certainly seems to have ground to a halt already for the past several months.

As for Lieberman, him throwing tens of thousands of lives under the bus to prop up unnecessary institutions in his home state is the most charitable interpretation. I honestly think he's just trying to appear important and conservative so he can successfully switch parties next cycle. He admitted that his biggest concern with Medicare expansion was that progressive congressmans liked the idea, then later justified that by saying that that obviously meant it leads to communism. I mean, he's "the swing vote" that "killed healthcare reform". That's a real hero position to be in from some perspectives.