“The best way to move forward is to include a public option with the opt-out provision for states,” Mr. Reid, of Nevada, said at a news conference. “I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system.Ahh, there is nothing quite like the rich, cloying scent of Village disdain for the Dirty F'ckin Hippies. This article is redolent with it. The bi-partisan Sensible Centrists are already declaring the big war on this one for it has offended the Snowe Queen (not that this is a bad thing.)It is not clear that Mr. Reid has the 60 votes he would need just to bring the bill to the Senate floor if it includes the public insurance plan. Senate aides said Monday that Mr. Reid was several votes short of that goal.
And with his latest move, he lost the one Republican who had given the Democratic efforts a hint of bipartisanship, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, who had supported the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the bill, which did not include a public plan.
“I am deeply disappointed with the majority leader’s decision to include a public option as the focus of the legislation,” Ms. Snowe said in a statement, and she said that Mr. Reid had missed a chance to keep her on board.“I still believe that a fallback safety net plan, to be triggered and available immediately in states where insurance companies fail to offer plans that meet the standards of affordability, could have been the road toward achieving a broader bipartisan consensus in the Senate,” Ms. Snowe said.
But Mr. Reid instantly achieved one of his goals, as his decision was acclaimed by liberal organizations like MoveOn, Families USA and Health Care for America Now, a coalition that includes labor unions and civil rights groups.
Expect the next week to be filled with more references of Democrats "ramming through things" than a porn hardware convention. Yay Liberal Media!
Who will the part of Judas Iscariot be played by, the Village wonders out loud. Who among the Lattecrats will stop this madness and betray Obama and become a hero to the Village echo chamber?
[UPDATE 8:30 PM] My, Dick Durbin's unspoken threat isn't very subtle now, is it?
"It's a zero-sum situation," said Durbin, who is in charge of counting votes in the Senate. "If we thought that just putting the trigger in meant that we'd end with 61 votes," he explained, then that's what leadership would have done.The question is, is he threatening the Dems to all hang together or else, or is he already pinning the blame on progressives because he knows the ConservaDems are about to kill this?"But there were some [senators] that felt that that just didn't go far enough moving toward a public option," said Durbin, who is himself a backer.
"We have 60 people in the caucus," Reid said. "We'll all hang together and see where we come out."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment