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Now that the Senate Democrats have apparently appeased Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) by dropping the public option and its recent epigone, Medicare expansion, there remains only one seeming Democratic holdout to those 60 votes needed to get that healthcare monstrosity passed: Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Nelson’s not only a fiscal moderate but he’s also the author of the failed amendment to the bill that would have banned funding for abortions–and he has vowed not to approve any health bill that provides for taxpayer-subsidized abortions.
No matter–for now (according to the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb), the Dem establishment is reportedly leaning on Nelson in a different way: threatening to close Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska if Nelson doesn’t vote the White House way:
Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.” They are “threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?” asked the Senate staffer.
Indeed, Offutt is the headquarters for US Strategic Command, the successor to Strategic Air Command, and not by accident. STRATCOM was located in the middle of the country for strategic reasons. Its closure would be a massive blow to the economy of the state of Nebraska, but it would also be another example of this administration playing politics with our national security.
Isn’t that nice? White House blackmail.
Finder’s Fee: Hot Air
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Since without a public option or a Medicare expansion the Senate healtcare bill would essentially consist of a requirement that everyone in America buy health insurance (at God knows what price, given the bill’s sweeping mandatory-coverage requirements), the Democrats’ ultra-left base has been screaming for Senate liberals to kill the bill and start over with something more “progressive” to ram down Americans’ throats:
Here’s Howard Dean (as reported on the Plum Line):
“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”
The New York Times reports that Sen. Roland Burris, President Obama’s replacement as Illinois senator, seems prepared to do exactly what Dean advocates:
…“My colleagues may have forged a compromise bill that can achieve the 60 votes that will be needed for it to pass. But until this bill addresses cost, competition and accountability in a meaningful way, it will not win mine.”
Finally, this poll at the Huffington Post reported that 52 percent of progressives want to see the Senate bill dead.
Other progressives are trying to get Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s wife, Hadassah, pushed out of her position as a spokesman for the breast-cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure, in order to punish her husband for refusing to back Medicare expansion and thus get it removed from the bill. The PoliticalTicker reports:
The move to pressure the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation came the same day Lieberman’s husband angered Democrats by announcing that he would not support an expansion of Medicare to cover individuals under the age of 55. Organizers did not point to that decision, instead citing Hadassah Lieberman’s own ties to the health care industry.
Lieberman has worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer and ALCO.
“We are asking Ellen DeGeneres, Christie Brinkley and other high-profile celebrities who are associated with Komen to demand that no more money raised for cancer treatment be given to Hadassah Lieberman or any other ex-Pharma/Insurance strategists,” said Jane Hamsher, founder of the Firedoglake blog.
Fortunately, the Komen foundation is classier than Hamsher. A spokesman issued this statement.
Hadassah Lieberman is an important and valued Global Ambassador for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As a Global Ambassador, Ms. Lieberman is focused on helping us reach out and educate women outside our borders about breast cancer, sharing our knowledge and experience in a culturally sensitive way that is making a real impact on the lives of women across the globe. We have every intention of continuing our relationship with Ms. Lieberman in our mutual pursuit of a world without breast cancer.
It’s not surprising that the progressives are furious. The ultimate goal of the public option (or a Medicare expansion, its softer version) is to erode the private-insurance system–and the role of private individuals and entities–in delivering and paying for healthcare, to the point that the federal government will be in complete control of all things medical. Progressives want a single-payer system–or at least the high road to a single-payer system–and they want it now. It’s no wonder that they’re beside themselves that, thanks to Joe Lieberman, the federal power-grabbing coup that seemed so enticingly close all summer and fall seems to be slipping away from them.
Finder’s Fees: Drudge
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Lieberman says no.
Ezra Klein says Lieberman
Wants people to die.
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Megan McArdle quotes this Twitter from Markos Moulitsas:
Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.
Yeah, we think it’s a monstrosity, too, Kos.
Finder’s Fee: Instapundit
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From AP:
President Barack Obama will meet with Senate Democrats at the White House Tuesday to press for action at a make-or-break moment for his health care overhaul.
All 60 members of the Democratic caucus have been invited, according to three Democratic officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement was not yet public.
Be there, or be square! That means you, Joe!
Finder’s Fee: Drudge
More arm-twisting from the White House:
The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the negotiations.
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But Reid is described as so frustrated with Lieberman that he is not ready to sacrifice a key element of the health care bill, and first wants to see the Congressional Budget Office cost analysis of the Medicare buy-in. The analysis is expected early this week.
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The White House disputed this account, saying any notion that officials there are trying to push Reid into cutting a deal with Lieberman is inaccurate. White House officials say they are on the same page with Reid, working with him to find the best way to move forward with reform – not pushing him to do something he doesn’t want to do.
Finder’s Fee: Ace of Spades HQ
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From the Dem base news website of record, the Huffington Post:
Eighty-one percent of Democrats said they would like to see the senator’s chairmanship — which he was allowed to keep despite campaigning for Sen. John McCain in 2008 — taken away should he sustain a filibuster. Only 10 percent of Democrats said there should be no punishment. Even fewer (nine percent) said they had yet to make up their minds, underscoring just how divisive Lieberman is within the party.
Finder’s Fee: Ace of Spades HQ.
From single-payer shill Ezra Klein, playing the murder card:
…Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.
Finder’s Fee: Michelle Malkin.
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1. Joe Lieberman:
Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut declared the early Medicare buy-in a bad deal for taxpayers and the deficit. He said he would vote against the bill in its current form.
Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,’’ Lieberman pleaded with Democrats to start subtracting expensive proposals from the overhaul, saying, “We don’t need to keep adding onto the back of this horse, or we’re going to break the horse’s back and get nothing done.’’
2. Ben Nelson:
“I’m concerned that it’s the forerunner of single payer, the ultimate single-payer plan, maybe even more directly than the public option,” Nelson said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
3. Claire McCaskill:
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri said on “Fox News Sunday’’ that she would “absolutely’’ vote against the package if it seemed destined to increase people’s out-of-pocket costs and the national debt.
Senators coming to their senses.
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From Sam Stein at the Huffington Post:
There is, currently, a nightmare scenario afflicting Democrats on Capitol Hill with regards to health care reform. And it goes like this: Sometime early next week, leadership gets word from the Congressional Budget Office on their latest outline of reform. The legislative language on which they’ve settled — the one with the clearest promise yet of getting the votes needed to cut off a Republican filibuster — has actually scored quite poorly, saving less money over time and covering fewer people than earlier versions of the bill.
Should this occur, it could complicate the entire process. It certainly will prolong it. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) has said that, in exchange for stripping the public option from the bill, Democrats should have to find another way to save $25 billion in health care costs (savings that, the CBO said, a government-run plan would have produced). It seems likely he would up this demand if the latest scoring turns out poor.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), meanwhile, told the Huffington Post this week that if the supplemental approach for the public plan — a provision that would expand Medicare to people as young as 55 — were to prove more costly or ineffective than the public option itself, then senators would have to “go back to the drawing board” and figure out another approach.
And on Sunday, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) echoed her colleague, telling “Fox News Sunday” that should the latest version of health care reform prove insufficient in bending the cost curve, she and others would “have to go back to the drawing board.”
Hmm, Maybe Nancy Pelosi won’t be getting that Christmas present from Harry Reid after all.
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Erick Erickson writes on RedState that it’s time for Republican senators to quit being nice and start getting serious about a monstrous healthcare overhaul that hardly anyone wants and will cost Americans more than $2.5 trillion:
The Senate, unlike the House of Representatives, has parliamentary rules and procedures that give the minority the ability to stall legislation. In fact, unlike the House, the minority have the ability to virtually paralyze the Senate. Doing so is not something we would want or expect for every bad bill that comes through Congress, but the proposed healthcare legislation is probably the worst piece of legislation ever considered by the United States Congress. It is the most intrusive, most damaging, most costly, most dangerous bill to the economic and personal freedom and liberty of individual Americans that Congress has ever considered. If there is any bill that deserves being stopped by shutting down the Senate, it is this one.
Erickson reminds the GOP that there are numerous parliamentary procedures available that could stall the bill at least until after Christmas, when the Dems will go home and have to face their constitutents: Delaying tactics include: no more “unanimous consent” (a polite move that allows amendments to be accepted), quorum calls, cloture votes (which even if passed, entail built-in delays), and irrelevant but ideologically loaded amendments:
The Republicans should be offering one amendment after another on all of their favorite issues such as guns, abortion, elimination of the death tax, ending the TARP program, and gay marriage in the District of Columbia. Nothing connotes trench warfare like non-germane amendments on hot-button social issues. When you look back at all of the great filibusters of past decades, they almost always involved non-germane, explosive amendments on contentious social and other issues. Republicans should be offering hundreds of such amendments on every topic and using the rules to force votes on every single one. And the Republicans should be forcing the reading of the bill and every single amendment, not consenting to waiving that requirement.
Some might argue that Republicans should not look “obstructionist.” But they are wrong – the vast majority of Americans don’t like this bill and don’t want it to pass. The Tea Party movement was the upheaval of millions of ordinary Americans who are scared and angry about the out-of-control growth of the federal government, federal spending, and the national debt. They want to see the Republicans obstructing passage of this bill and if they think the Republicans are not fighting with every tool they have at their disposal, then any advantage that the Republicans think they will get in next year’s elections from such a bill being passed will evaporate. Conservatives will mount challenges to what they see as weak Republicans, just like what happened in New York’s special congressional race, helping Democrats eek out wins. And other conservative will stay home (like they did in 2008) rather than support GOP incumbents who did not fight.
So, c’mon guys, it’s only 13 days until Christmas. The bill is already bogged down because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can’t seem to muster 60 votes to back his views on abortion funding and the public option. Do it, GOP senators. Please don’t let the Democrats saddle us with this frightening and unpopular legislation.
Fincer’s Fee: Instapundit
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Oh, no!
A new report from government economic analysts at the Health and Human Services Department found that the nation’s $2.5 trillion annual health care tab won’t shrink under the Democratic blueprint that senators are debating. Instead, it would grow somewhat more rapidly than if Congress does nothing.
More troubling was the report’s assessment that the Democrats’ plan to squeeze Medicare for $493 billion over 10 years in savings relies on specific policy changes that “may be unrealistic” and could lead to cuts in services. The Medicare savings are expected to cover about half the nearly $1 trillion, 10-year cost of expanding coverage to the uninsured.
In still more bad news, the report starkly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan included in the legislation could “face a significant risk of failure” because it would attract people in poor health, leading to higher and higher premiums, and eventually triggering an “insurance death spiral.”
But…
The analysis from the Office of the Actuary, which does long-range cost estimates for Medicare, was prefaced by a disclaimer saying it does not represent the official position of the Obama administration.
No kidding!
Finder’s Fee: Instapundit
