Coburn and Vitter were unarmed in that battle of wits.

I was hoping someone would try that. But i Figured it would be a dem.

...and to cure your addiction to donuts, Coburn and Vitter will feed you donuts until you tire of them (which might not be for a while).

Idiots.

OK. Gotta say it.

Hoisted on their own petard !

Ouch.

Love it, love it!!

Now the Democrats can sell the whole bill as a Bi-Partisan effort!

They were counting on the 'limousine liberal' sense of entitlement from Democratic senators to a) create resistance, and b) give them another talking point. And that was a pretty good bet, actually; plenty of the Senate Dems are vain, entitled, self-satisfied jerks. However, the worst ones are learning to keep their mouths shut while their braver colleagues do the talking, and that's where this little trick came up short.

We are governed by malevolent children.

How dare Democrats behave bipartisanly

I only hope Brown and the others actually push this thing along, after Vitters and Coburn drop out as quietly as they can. Not that it has a chance in hell of becoming reality, but I for one would love to see Congress locked into such a plan. It's akin to offering people a new housing development, and forcing the contractor and builders to live in it, themselves. You're guaranteed a certain level of basic competence, if nothing else.

Cool. BIPARTISAN SUPPORT !!! RUN WITH IT BABY

They need to do a better job of studying history.

Making women a protected class in the workplace was a laughably crazy idea that not only would garner no support, it was offered as an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a poison pill to make the entire thing unpalatable.

Oops.

dr.coldburn pick up the courtesy phone!!!

bhahahahahaha.

Zeitgeist beat me to it. Just a footnote. When some of the male northern liberals were getting a bit squishy and wondering what to do about this devilish maneuver, the handful of women in Congress basically said "Sounds like a good idea to me" and turned them around. I'd love to have been a fly on Rep. Howard Smith's office when he learned that his bluff had been called.

Sorry to be cynical -- well, on second thought, maybe I am not sorry -- but most of these Dems wouldn't be calling this bluff if they weren't pretty sure the public option is going to be thrown out.

The thing about the limozine liberal angle is that most senators are wealthy enough that losing their health coverage isn't that big a deal.

The house is a different story, though. They may all be rich, but your average house member is on a much lower stratum than your average senator. House members probably appreciate their coverage more than senators.

Party of Douchebags

"It didn't occur to them that Democrats would call their bluff."

...Probably because Congressional democrats have a (mostly deserved) reputation for not having the stones to call GOP bluffs.

If only they showed this kind of brass more often, the GOP wouldn't be able to run rough-shod over the entire Congress and the Constitution.

In fact, people like our distinguished Senators and Representatives are those who would benefit most from a reasonable public plan. After all, the public plan will probably cover major medical costs and preventative care soundly, without being a cadillac plan that covers everything. As reasonably to very wealthy upper-middle class individuals in reasonably good health, our Congressional class can probably effectively self-insure the rare or minor costs that are not covered by a public plan, safe in the knowledge that anything really expensive will be covered.

Good for Brown, Mikulski, and Dodd, who appear to actually have functioning brains!

The house is a different story, though. They may all be rich, but your average house member is on a much lower stratum than your average senator. House members probably appreciate their coverage more than senators.

House members make about $170K a year and have a median net worth of about $684K. About 40 percent of House members have net worths of at least $1 million each (in contrast to about 1 percent of all American adults).

You're right that senators are wealthier, but I think it's unlikely that the personal benefit of free health insurance is a major factor in even house members' legislative decisions.

Coburn and Vitter apparently don't get out much, or listen to chatter around them, because the idea of members of congress being enrolled in "the public option" has been on the public's radar for quite some time.

How could they not realize that Democrats would think this a great idea? It's called putting your money where your mouth is.

The point of a public option is choice -- consumers would be given a chance to select from a series of competing plans, choosing the one that works best for them.

For many americans the public option will be the only option.

The point of a public option is choice

Gosh, and here all along I thought the point of the Public Option was to lay the groundwork for Single Payer, and what better way to get congress focused on SP then by forcing them to sign-up with the health care plan of last resort?

HAW-haw!

I only wish Brown et al would have kept quiet until the vote on this amendment.

Didn't something similar happen earlier in the process? Chuck Grassley wanted to require members of Congress to be covered by the health exchanges, and Harry Reid or Max Baucus said, "great, let's do it."

Will those two provisions conflict? Or since the exchanges have fallen by the wayside, this is another ploy. you'd think they would have learned from the first attempt.

"Coburn and Vitter were unarmed in that battle of wits."

Wow. You don't see comment winner like that very often. Write all you want, but that comment says it all.

You should never bring a teabaq to a gunfight.

...that's teabaG of course. Never good when one's rare bursts of wit get whacked by a typo.

there needs to be more bluff-calling by the Dems -- a tenfold increase would be ideal.

Remember Rep. Blumenauer? He had a really good op-ed (on "death panels") in NYT about a week ago. Well... He now has an amendment (to the House bill) which is somewhat similar to the Coburn/Vitter (and Brown)one, but better: instead of forcing anyone into the public option, let's withhold all the Fed-offered option from Congress. It's still the same idea of the level playing field for the nabobs in Congress and the hoi-polloi in the Main Street, but achieved from the other end, so to speak (and more to my personal taste):
http://washingtonindependent.com/69715/a-bill-to-withhold-federal-health-benefits-from-congress#more-69715

This would be the only, I repeat, only health care bill I would agree with. They should take it one step further, include all federal government employees. Let them work the bugs out over a 5 year trial period then turn it over to country. This is the only way I would trust any policy contrived by a bunch of idiot politicians .........dem or rep

"Sorry to be cynical -- well, on second thought, maybe I am not sorry -- but most of these Dems wouldn't be calling this bluff if they weren't pretty sure the public option is going to be thrown out.
Posted by: John B."

Please! The LAST thing any of those multi-millionaires needs to worry about is their personal health care! They can afford to buy any type of coverage they want!

Just this year they voted themselves a pay raise from $169,000 to $174,000 a year. And for most of them, that's still chump change!

And that's to say nothing about their spouses' coverage since many of their spouses have jobs as well.

They don't care about this provision personally, and it's good politics. So, why not?

This should not be a gimmick that gets a nod and a wink. They, no WE, should force ALL federal employees into the public option along with the elected. That way we can be sure the plan would be sound and well taken care of!

John G, you read my mind. I'm a federal employee and I pay $600+ per month for health care for myself and my spouse...plus copays of course...for an HMO, not the top shelf plan. I'd go for the public option in a minute if I could! I think I would get as good access to service as I have now and save a lot of money.