NO !!! Let Joe kill it then. And let him be tarred and feathered by his constituents. We can get it done next year.

But what if Lieberman discovers new concerns and takes the bill hostage all over again?

Charlie Brown and the football come to mind.

Now Lieberman is the bad guy.

How could the White House have known that he would act this way? Joe appeared to be such a nice person. Poor Obama. Why can't all these bad people go away and let him do what he wants?

I said at the time that the time to cut a deal with Lieberman was before the beginning of the current Congress. The deal: if Lieberman wanted to keep his Democratic seniority and his chaimanship he had to pledge never to vote with the majority of Republicans on any cloture motion. Simple. But Lieberman got what he wanted, as far as I know, without any quid pro quo. Maybe I'm missing something: does anyone know why such a deal could not have been cut?

Don't bet on it, Coral. The Republicans, having guaranteed the failure of the bill, will then blame it all on Obama and the Democrats, ridicule them for it as mercilessly as they did Hillary Clinton when they lied her program into oblivion, and will probably use it to win a number of Congressional seats in the midterms. Nothing succeeds like success. Some kind of bill has to get through. It doesn't have to be much, but it has to be a start.

And if the liberals give in on this issue, they will never be able to make a credible threat ever again. Sorry, but the progressives said it was a public option or no bill, and they have to follow through or they will have absolutely no leverage on any future legislation - whether related to health care or not. They will be demonstrated to be just as weak as the wingnuts are always claiming they are.

If every other part of the health care reform plan can be passed as a regular law, can Medicare expansion be passed under reconciliation? Are there 51 Senators who could be willing to support such a tactic, even if Reid isn’t one of them?

If every other part of the health care reform plan can be passed as a regular law, can Medicare expansion be passed under reconciliation?

Yes. It's very clearly budget-related.

Are there 51 Senators who could be willing to support such a tactic, even if Reid isn’t one of them?

That's the $64,000 question. I would hope the answer is "yes" but I wouldn't bet my life on it.

"* One thing to keep an eye on. Lieberman has made some specific demands, which he insists have to be met. But what's to stop Lieberman from making new demands if the White House and Senate leaders give him what he wants now? It's not like he's negotiating in good faith, and it's not like Lieberman's word has value. The White House wants Reid to cut the deal, assuming that it would end the standoff. But what if Lieberman discovers new concerns and takes the bill hostage all over again?"

At this point it basically seems like the thing to do is do whatever necessary to get Olympia Snowe on board. We may not agree with her on things but at least you can be reasonably certain if she makes a deal she'll stick to it, and her demands last month seemed to be less onerous than those Lieberman are making now.

Um, I have to rain on people's parade, but 1) Nelson is still pushing for anti-choice language, and 2) Sanders is likely to defect if they strip out the medicare buy-in.

So once again you write and post a story claiming the white house is doing something, which you don't bother to source accurately, and which you then immediately have to retract as a fraudulent story that was never true, as soon as you check the facts with the people you're writing about.

You should fire whomever the fool was who sourced this bullshit non-story since they obviously should move to FOX news.

And if the liberals give in on this issue, they will never be able to make a credible threat ever again. Sorry, but the progressives said it was a public option or no bill, and they have to follow through or they will have absolutely no leverage on any future legislation - whether related to health care or not. They will be demonstrated to be just as weak as the wingnuts are always claiming they are.

Trick is, the progressives said it was a robust public option or no bill. By which I mean, the Progressive Caucus in the House mostly signed a letter saying they would not vote for a "compromise" bill in which the public option used negotiated rates rather than medicare-linked rates. They did not get medicare-linked rates. They did not even get an amendment vote on their preferred version of the bill, like the anti-choice democrats did. They got nothing. And they voted for the bill anyway.

For this reason any credibility that progressives have of stopping this bill is already gone. If a "compromise" bill goes up in the House, it will pass, because House progressives will basically do whatever Pelosi says. We have proof of this already.

What a great precedence this sets!

I can't wait to hear them whine how shocked -- SHOCKED -- they are at being trounced in 2010.

Oh, No!!! Joe has new demands! Now he wants BHO to throw in a cobalt blue Jaguar and a case of IBS medicine.

Lieberman is a temporary phenomenon, destined for the dustbin either by geriatrics or electoral disgust. If anything this should be an object lesson on why the filibuster needs to be modified, so pay the man, let him proceed down the road to full entropy, fix the problems with more legislation.

Fucking do it in reconciliation already.

Steve...can you please stop citing Politico as a sole source for any insider DC info? Politico has proven again and again that there slant is pro-republican and unreliable. Multiple sources, fine...Politico only, no. Politico deserves the same consideration as Fox News for quality of sourcing and news delivery.

As an aside, the health care reform debate is so fluid that quoting anonymous aides is especially unreliable and is not indicative of solid information.

"teve...can you please stop citing Politico as a sole source for any insider DC info? Politico has proven again and again that there slant is pro-republican and unreliable. Multiple sources, fine...Politico only, no."

Seconded. Steve, it isn't worth our time to cite that rag. If anything, and if I were the WH, it would be "easiest" to go through Snowe than Lieberman. At least she seems to give some semblance of caring about her constituents.

Yeah...Politico sucks, and they're always wrong.

So quickly you've wandered from the deaths that are the cause of inadequate healthcare and coverage. Fuck Lieberman, his douchebag wife, Hadassah, and all the other murderers in Congress. They vote to kill the browns across the planet and vote to kill the poor and disenfranchised and ignorant here in the U.S. Why does Obama give them one breath? The issue is life and death, not how much money it will cost. Where are the health care providers on this? Why are we not hearing from them? Are they speaking and just not being reported?
I am Disgusted!

I dunno if it's a good idea to ignore Politico altogether, but you should at least put big flashing warnings on anything sourced to them. Just as a matter of site policy.

Only a fraction of the HCR in the House, or that was voted out of the Senate, can be done under reconciliation. Any portion of it could be objected to by any one Senator, which objection must be voted down by a -- you guessed it -- 3/5ths majority, or 60 votes:

Effect of points of order - The effect of raising a point of order under the Byrd rule is to strike the offending extraneous provision. If a point of order against a conference report is sustained, the Senate may consider subsequent motions to dispose of that portion of the conference report not subject to the point of order.

Waivers - The Byrd rule is not self-enforcing. A point of order must be raised at the appropriate time to enforce it. The Byrd rule can only be waived by a 3/5 (60) majority vote of the Senate.

the great leap forward from the thugs and criminals of the bush/cheney years:

where they usta hang signs like "blue skies" on corporate giveaways that destroy the environment and kill people with pollution, the new Dim admin and majority in Congress just hang empty signs on nothing: "health care reform"

we're back to zero!
yahoo!
whatta country!

(i hope not only do they strip Lieberman of everything his Dim seniority has provided, i hope they brand him traitor and scoundrel for the rest of his life... and even so, what suckers they are...)

How ironic - Lieberman could end up killing more Americans than Osama Bin Laden!

White House Senior Communications Adviser Dan Pfeiffer insisted this afternoon that officials are "not pushing Senator Reid in any direction."

And he thinks it's a good thing!

EPIC OBAMA FAIL ON HEALTH CARE

Does Conn. have recall? If so, they should start it. I don't normally give money for campaigns in states other than my own (MN), but in this case I would make an exception.

Does Conn. have recall?

18 states have a procedure for recall. Connecticut is not one of them. The point is moot anyway since the Constitution does not delegate to the states the ability to recall Senators. Any hypothetical successful recall would be unenforceable.

The best thing Reid and Obama could do at this point is to pass nothing at all and blame the failure on Holy Joe and the Republicans. Fuck it - this bill is fatally flawed. I am voting Green Party from now on.

The Democrats have pathetically allowed the Republicans+Lieberman to lead them down a no-win path from Day One. They cast their majority to the wind, including by "forgiving" Lieberman for campaigning against Democrats in 2008, and methodically demolishing every committee process. The Dems act like battered women and their majorities are useless. I spit.

We need a Progressive Party.

Any portion of it could be objected to by any one Senator, which objection must be voted down by a -- you guessed it -- 3/5ths majority, or 60 votes

That is not correct as far as I understand the rules. What will happen is that there will be a point of order raised by a HCR opponent to the effect that a provision violates the Byrd Rule. This point of order is then ruled on by the presiding officer (Biden or the president pro tem. If the presiding officer overrules the point of order, it would take a simple majority vote to overturn the ruling and strike the provision in question.

Past practice as I understand it is that the presiding officer's ruling will abide by the recommendation of the Senate parliamentarian. Medicare expansion and/or a public plan clearly are budget-related items so I would expect that not to be a problem.

The Byrd rule would not AFAIK have to be waived to dispose of a point of order.

I would welcome correction by someone better versed in the Senate's arcane rules.

I am not a fan of the Republican tactic of kicking someone out of the party because they don't agree with the party line.

But, in Lieberman's case I would support expelling him from the Democratic party.. Oh, that's right, he gave up that claim when he became an Independent Republican.

In that case he should have ALL his committee assignments stripped from his sorry ass.

Lieberman is the WH's man and always has been. He was Obama's mentor whne he was a Jr. senator from Ill. He was there to get rid of the torture Photos and now is there to get rid of the Public option.

Now he has been instructed by President Rahm Obama to get rid of this Medicare buy in because what good does it do to have all these "required by law" new customers that are being exchanged for dropping the pre existing clauses...IF an equal number of current customers are allowed to drop private ins and "buy in" to Medicare.

No no no shouts the private ins to Rahm Obama. That was not the deal...we were to gain millions of new customers and now we will be losing millions of current customers if this "buy-in" is allowed to pass.

Thus they call in Joe Lieberman to kill it and the WH pressures Reid to pinch his nose and accept it. Don't kid yourself for a second...this is coming from the WH's President Rahm Obama who have already bargained away the PO. Private ins. cannot allow this to stand.

And what's with this "20 yrs. of ins. inactivity on reform" in the congress. The problem is still there and getting worse and will not go away. It must be dealt with...there's is no waiting. Necessity demands reform now and there is no law saying we must wait 20yrs for reform is this bill doesn't pass.

Where do you get that 20yr. nonsense from Benen? In fact, if this bill is killed I'd fully expect the congress to take up another reform bill in the very next session. Hopefully by then the senate will have fixed it's abusive filibuster rule and its "hold" rule so the majority can get back to legislating again.

Lieberman is just doing what the WH is instructing him to do. Get rid of Rahm & Lieberman.

So with no public option and with no Medicare buy-in, what the hell is there?
What are we supposed to "build" on? You can't build a foundation on nothing.

Why won't any of these spineless Dems call out Lieberman on his ever-changing justifications for obstruction, and more importantly, on the major conflict of interest he has with his wife? You think she's not telling him what to do every freaking night?
"Well, they got rid of the PO for a Medicare buy-in. What do you think?"
"Oh, no no no, that will never do!"

I hate this sorry excuse for a man. He doesn't care how many people die because of his actions, he only cares about his own wealth. He is the most glaring example of the worst our country has to offer, except for the President and other Senate Dems who continue to enable him.
Remember how Bayh said that keeping Lieberman in the caucus meant that they could keep him on a short leash? Yeah right. Someone needs to remind him of what he said last year when he was defending this scumbag. Of course this exactly what Bayh, another compromised Dem with a wife working for the insurance industry, was hoping for.
I'm about ready to give up, I don't see how any meaningful parts of this plan pass without going through reconciliation.

"No no no shouts the private ins to Rahm Obama. That was not the deal...we were to gain millions of new customers and now we will be losing millions of current customers if this "buy-in" is allowed to pass."

You're WILDLY exaggerating the effectiveness of the Medicare Buy-In provisions. The only reason the Insurance companies are opposed to this is that they've got Democrats on the run and might as well pile on to make sure that NOTHING passes, and that NOBODY will ever bring up HCR again!

The Medicare buy-in without immediate public subsidies up to at least 250% of the federal poverty level (which isn't being provided) will be too expensive for most middle class families to afford to begin with -- so middle-class people won't see any benefit there.

Second, they won't be allowed to buy in anyway until 2014 -- by which time the way we're going a majority of Congress will further amend the bill to kill them altogether (because the insurance companies don't like them).

This is about as useful as "triggers" designed NOT to trigger.

What ghillie said.

The repeated observation "it's gotta be now or health care reform won't be revisited for 20 years" is ridiculous.

In twenty years, Medicare costs will bankrupt the government. Congress knows full well it can't put off health care reform for 20 years.

Better this crappy bill die and FORCE Congress and the President (whether Republican or Democratic) to deal with the reality that the impending crisis isn't going away. Obama, Reid, Lieberman, Landrieu, Nelson deserve to be tarred and feathered for failing on this. They've earned the fail, they deserve the consequences.

I think you are engaged in wishful thinking, Steve. I think that Joe has only just begun to humiliate this administration.

[Lieberman] was Obama's mentor whne he was a Jr. senator from Ill.

WTF? Says who? Do you just make this shit up after you've gotten yourself worked up into a frenzy? I won't even address the rest of your paranoid rant.

Give blackmailers what they want, and they'll always come back for more.

As an American, I can say unequivocally that Joe Lieberman is no friend to my nation!

He marches to the beat of corporate monopoly and seemingly works to nuke Iran on his spare time! Joe will not have a very healthy retirement, as he will bear the totemic burden of allowing Americans to die daily because of his intractable ego! -Kevo

Gotta say that the we have to give in to Lieberman arguments are pathetic.

The plan basically doesn't work with some version of the public option. It becomes one huge pathetic bribe to the insurance industry.

If the President and leaders aren't willing to defend their ideas now - when will they?

Policymakers can work on adding a public option, expanding Medicare, expanding Medicaid, boosting subsidies, and strengthening the exchange after the bill comes becomes law and everyone is brought into the system.

More likely, when the crippled bill becomes law and fails to deliver results because of the way it has been crippled, it will be repealed rather than repaired, having discredited the ideas associated with.

Lieberman gets NOTHING. It's far better for all involved including the American people to cave to whatever demands Snowe and even Collins have than to pretend Joe Lieberman has real concerns other than obstruction.

Reid could whip out the Finance bill that already got Snowe's bill and move with that. Just get the bill the hell out of the Senate and never give Lieberman another goddamn thing. The guy is poison.

Wow, I'm actually kind of surprised that folks on MSNBC are calling out Lieberman on his bullshit reasons for opposing this.
Even the normal villager pundits are saying there's no principle involved, just Joe's petty desire to stick it to the liberals and the bloggers who opposed him in 2006.
What a worthless little slimeball.

Nothing real is going to pass without reconciliation.
I hear people saying just pass anything and get to conference, but don't they need 60 votes again after it comes back? If I'm wrong please tell me.

WTF? Says who? Do you just make this shit up... -Estelle

Says the facts. Google before flying off the handle next time.

Are there any psychologists who can explain how someone can be as slimey and lowdown as Lieberman and still have the chutzpah to be seen in public? It would seem to me that anyone with a mother would have been raised with enough of a conscience to feel so shamed by behavior like he his that they would hide in a closet somewhere and not ever come out.

If the bill includes Stupak-like language, and it guts state insurance regulations that are tougher than federal regulations, it's a step backwards.

"White House Senior Communications Adviser Dan Pfeiffer insisted this afternoon that officials aren't pushing Reid."

Of course they aren't. Obama leaves the whole agenda to the Hill. The very fact that we are expending so much capitol on the ever-shifting health reform debate is because the Hill wants health reform. Obama has never had any legislative agenda not suggested to him by Harry and Nancy. That's what you get for electing a community organizer. Its a different skill set than leading. He's weak. He's not a leader. His actions couldn't be farther away from the high flying rhetoric. And it's going to blow us out at the polls in November.

As for Lieberman being Obama's mentor when he was in the Senate, that is untrue, Google or not. One would have to physically be in the Senate, present and attempting to legislate or interact with colleages to have a "mentor." How do you mentor someone who was never there? Obama was out running for President.

Mareeeeeeeeeeee?

"For that matter, officials are likely looking ahead -- if a good bill fails, reform is dead for 20 years. If a bill reflecting Lieberman's demands succeeds, it creates a foundation that can be built upon going forward."

Someone's going to have to explain this to me sometime, because personally, this seems pretty goddamn hollow.

Reconcilation. Bite the bullet. Do it.

"Policymakers can work on adding a public option, expanding Medicare, expanding Medicaid, boosting subsidies, and strengthening the exchange after the bill comes becomes law and everyone is brought into the system."

And just HOW do you propose that be accomplished ?

If they pass a bill that mandates everyone buy overpriced policies from the for-profit private-sector health insurance corporations, many Democrats will STAY HOME for the 2010 elections and the Republicans will pick up a large number of seats in the House and Senate.

There will no longer be enough votes to pass any of those additions you listed.

Vote it DOWN.

Do we really still want to call it health care reform?

How about the Lieberman/Emanuel/Obama Fuck the Middle Class Act of 2010?

Yes. Lets raise taxes on union voters and force those young people who voted for Obama to buy health insurance they won't, and likely can't, actually use in order to subsidize the healthcare of McCain voters.

Good luck with that political strategy. Let me know how taking a jack-hamer to Obama's electoral coalition works out for you.

The WH should tell Lieberman they accept the position he took just *three months ago*:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIb13mYoy0Q

I'm sure Lieberman's cronies in Hartford saw this and had heart attacks. Thank goodness they have insurance.

Message to the prez: You are THIS close to losing your base. Nearly time to tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye, Mr. president. I believe this white house with its AIPAC leadership has absolutely no fucking idea how pissed off the progressive voters are about this utterly shitty performance. You may well set the record for the biggest tin ear and the shortest time to failure of any administration in recent history. You're a pathetic example of a progressive democrat, Mr. President. Next to you Bill Clinton was a crazed, wild ass left wing liberal.

What's to stop the Dems paying Lieberman's ransom, putting the regulatory package in whatever form is required to get sixty votes and a signature...

...and then immediately afterward ramming through a separate public option, open to everyone, with Medicare rates, via reconciliation?

Harry Reid might even say "Hey, we were just taking advantage of all the powers we had--just like you, Joe, you hand-wringing, sanctimonious piece of shit!"

Break Lieberman's legs. Then his arms. Then his ribs. Drag his sorry ass behind a car to the nearest (by freeway) ER. Then deny his insurance claim as being a bag of s**t is a pre-existing condition.

If he keeps his committee chairmanship, I am through with the Dems.

President Obama and the politicians have FAILED Americans by letting Lieberman, an avenging demon to stop the process for m'care buy in.

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