Senators emerging from the special Democratic caucus confirmed that the Medicare buy-in proposal will have to be stripped from the Senate bill in order to achieve 60 votes, marking a major concession on behalf of liberal Democrats fighting to have a public option, or some kind of alternative.
Now, the question remains whether or not the liberals in the Senate and in the House will go along. That's still unclear. Roland Burris is already balking but no one seems to take his bluster seriously.
If the liberals are smart, they take this deal, and the House agrees to the Senate compromise. This would still create a massive 2000 page bill. It still has over 100 new bureaucracies. There still plenty of government control. Even if they aren't offering insurance themselves, the government will now dictate health insurance in all sorts of new ways. That still gets the liberals plenty close enough to their dream of single payer.
I'm sorry, Mike, but this post smacks of "they all look alike"-ism. You have pretty well demonstrated you have absolutely no idea what liberals want or what they think so why even bother to comment on it?
ReplyDeleteNothing would please conservatives more than to have liberals oppose this bill, set up a game of chicken, and have the whole thing blow up.
ReplyDeleteConservatives would be in a state of delusional chaos if the bill I suggested passed. They would see that as a government takeover.
I also know that Wade Rathke told me about a welfare rights story in which welfare reform proponents opposed a bill because it didn't go far enough and the bill was killed entirely.
So, frankly, whatever.