There is a request to sign for public option by reconciliation letter to Reid by Sen. M. Bennet on Huffpost.

http://savethepublicoption.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-michael-bennet/save-the-public-option_b_464682.html

They can vote for whatever they want. We can contribute to, work to elect and vote for WHOMEVER we want. Obviously, the Dems we worked to elect still do not believe we will vote against them when the alternative is so dismal. They are wrong.
This fall I will vote against every incumbent Democrat running for every office at every level of Government. Why? Because our elected Dems. have repeatedly shown they have no respect for us, and they care nothing about the ideals the Democratic Party has historically stood and fought for.
When Dems get clobbered in Nov., Obama can he the President he desires to be – a do nothing President with no pressure to do more than talk and act Presidentially. SHAME ON HIM, what an opportunity he’s squandered!!!!!

Dianne Feinstein just signed on to using reconciliation to pass the public option. That might actually gain traction.

I forget, where was Diane Feinstein when Democrats needed her leadership on the “Public Option”?

off eating cake somewhere plush?

So – the plan is to get to reconcilation a bill that taxes working people’s benefits and have a mandate with no public option which, gosh darn, we don’t have the votes to change it? Oh, well, we have to pass something. Just like TARP we have to pass something!

I agree i voted for Obama after Hillary dropped out and now I have buyers remorse. This Guy has no balls and has shown no leadership along with our parties members of congress.Why support them when they couldn’t get anything done with 60 votes and are now even afraid to move forward with 59 votes what a bunch of losers.I my self will sit on my hands in 2010 and 2012 unless this party stands up and does something. And by that i don’t mean to continue to kiss Snowe’s and other Repuk’s asses

Good. Here’s the followup question: How did diane feinstein’s husband amass his fortune? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot – nobody cares. Sometimes I just don’t know what gets into me, that was so crass.

YES, that makes two of us!

Please, George, let us not conflate “us” with “them”.

It is not “we”, “the people” who are doing (or not doing) these certain things, rather it is “they” (who are charged to REPRESENT “us”, responding honestly to genuine need).

In all snarkly rectitude, might we (that is “us”) use the form “we” when tonguing in cheek?

We, the people, have had NO part in these shenanigans, yet as always, it is we, the people, who shall pay for them.

A small quibble, perhaps, but too often seen in what passes as “responsible” (choke … cough! cough!) journalism, these days (daze?).

DW

We are amused that you folks wistfully wonder where all the moderate Republicans have gone, yet you despise moderate Democrats. Why is that?

Let’s face reality.

For the Democrats, EVERYTHING is an excuse.

For the Republicans, NOTHING needs an excuse.

This show is getting so old and predictable, it really needs to be canceled.

Really.

Nate Silver’s at it again. I think he stays up nites conjuring ways to ingratiate himself with Rahm.

Wasn’t this also reported yesterday?

So this is likely the contents of the “bill” that the White House will post prior to the Feb 25 summit. This doesn’t appear too newsy to me. Just looks like the inside news media are treading water.

Also looks like the Senators signing on to do the public option through reconciliation is the usual “progressive” Democratic posturing to say “Uh, we tried….again.”

And whom will you vote in instead…a typical lying, thieving, obstructionist, government-doesn’t-work corporate-whore Republican?

The key take-away point:

The last thing that needs to be said is that whatever numerical differences there are, they’re on the shoulders of SurveyUSA and not FDL.

It is interesting, however, to see how Nate mischaracterizes the FDL position on the healthcare bill. Has no one explained to him that there are multiple healthcare bills? And the “11-dimensional chess” slap was gratuitous and unbecoming. Silver should stick to what he knows — poll accuracy — and stay away from political strategy. That said, robo-polling with a long set of questions was not necessarily the best idea, SUSA.

cadillac tax… phhpt… eff that

i would never accept a bill that taxes health insurance as profit–even if it only targeted the so-called ‘cadillac’ policies. to me, that is a non-starter.

the dems major blunder in this healthcare fight was to play by the rightwing’s rules and agree that the crisis of health care is cost. the dems–if they truly wanted REAL health reform (and i don’t think the dem leadership did nor does)–would have framed health care as a basic right for everyone, which is currently being denied in order to bolster the profits of the health-profiteers and their employees in the govt.

and, sorry, until the DoD, the DEA, and other bloated sectors of the govt, are forced to cut back their wasteful spending i don’t think any american should accept the notion that people have to feel responsible for govt debt just b/c they have health insurance that the rest of the industrialized world receives…

Be very careful… there is no reason to trust DI Fi.

Without very specific details of how or what anyone in DC is defining/calling a PO.

Question — is FDL going to do a push to get 50 senators to sign the PO via reconciliation letter, similar to the efforts made to get calls to Harry Reid and Blanche Lincoln?

Single payer is the only option.

Anything else is just going to be used as a method of bankrupting the lower 99% as fast as possible.

Whew! Thanks, Jon. For a minute there I was afraid that Obama and the dems were going to stand up and be counted. What a disaster that would be, with those teensy little margins, some of the largest since FDR.

Now, we’ll have a candidate for the Kabuki Academy Awards. Oh, Joy.

Notice that Nate keeps dodging Jane’s key point? As she said over a month ago:

The baseline question at the top of the poll asked about Obama’s approval ratings in the district, and then tested  Snyder against Griffin.  Nobody has challenged the accuracy of those numbers, taken before any other questions were asked. If Snyder felt it was time to retire based on that poll, it was because it showed he was running 17 points behind his opponent, and not because we asked a question of 600 people in the district.  And if the poll was truly inaccurate, I’m sure the DCCC could spring for the cash to run another one to disprove it.

Seven term congressmen know how to ask for that kind of thing.  They don’t retire over polls they know to be invalid.

Far more likely is that the poll confirmed what Snyder already knew.  When Parker Griffin switched parties, his staff downloaded all of the DCCC’s polling first.  Everyone on the Hill was wigging out about it.  All the talk about the “inevitability” of the health care bill passing was, we assumed, a desperate bid to jam it through before anyone found out how badly this insurance industry/PhRMA bailout was hurting the Democrats.

Nate goes out of his way to fling out an irrelevant straw man by stating that Vic Snyder didn’t do any polling of his own — whilst not mentioning that the DCCC was polling the race so there wasn’t any perceived need for Snyder to have done so himself. Again, seven-term congressmen don’t retire over a single bad poll.

The SUSA/FDL poll obviously confirmed the DCCC’s own internal polling on the Snyder race, and that’s what triggered Snyder’s decision to retire. But to admit that would mean admitting a whole bunch of things that the White House and their apologists don’t want to admit.

OT
Eyewitnesses to the plane crash in Austin say it looked deliberate.

“We are amused that you folks wistfully wonder where all the moderate Republicans have gone, yet you despise moderate Democrats. Why is that?”

It’s because you made it up in your own head, no one is ‘wistful’ about ‘moderate republicans’.

If the Senate is going to use reconciliation, why don’t they simply pass the House bill and be done with it? They have 50 votes for that, right?

It’s all kabuki. They’re flailing around to salvage the November elections while at the same time trying to get the senate sellout passed for their friends in the insurance industry. Rock and a hard place. Disgusting.

The real question that the poll should have addressed is “Does support for the House bill and the public option help or hurt him in November?” and “Does support for the Senate bill with no public option and an excise tax imposed on insurance companies for high-value plans help or hurt him in November?”

The key argument is whether the Blue Dogs are losing because they are going too far or not far enough on healthcare reform. The conventional wisdom is “too far”. Poll data suggests, but not poll has asked the right questions to determine, that the true situation is “not far enough”.

Sharonsj, YES, absolutely!

Remember the Byrd amendment. Only the budget-affecting portions can be passed through reconciliation. The public option could go through but not the prohibitions against denials of coverage, denials of benefits, annual and lifetime limits, or rescissions; that would have to be separate legislation. The Senate bill has those prohibitions in it already; House passage takes care of that but not the sticky issues related to the budget. Thus the sidecar legislation.

I’m sure a number of people have explained your point to him, BUT they’re not paying his bills. He reminds me of a miniature Mary Matalin, their appeal is to the lame, they’re as amoral as they are shortsighted and greedy.

This whole discussion using needless extraneous terms does nothing but cloud and confuse the issue.

First off the House has already passed its health care bill so what exactly is it being asked to do now and by whom. Is it supposed now to pass the Senate bill and drop its original bill and then start negotiations through reconciliation on the basis of the Senate bill?

Why the fuck should the House do that and who is it that is asking it to do that? Also what purpose is served by calling something a Senate bill plus a side car. How exactly does that clarify the issue. What is this fucking side car?

If what is being proposed by who knows whom that reconciliation be started based on the Senate bill that is one thing. If reconciliation is to start based on the Senate bill plus some ill defined side car that’s another thing.

Let’s just keep things simple. The House version of the bill includes provisions that are at least palatable to most Americans while the Senate bill does not. There either is or is not 50 Democratic Senators who are willing to support the House bill or even to enhance it. If there are not those Democratic Senators then nothing gets passed.

The debate is not made any clearer by introducing terms like sidecar that only muddle the question at hand.

I read Sargent’s post as proof that there are no remaining hurdles. I read the above Jon Walker post as proof that, for either personal or professional reasons, Jon doesn’t like the compromise bill and doesn’t want it to pass.

Yeah, he flew a plane into an IRS building, killed himself and torched the building. Hpost had a link to the supposed suicide note that he left.

His beef seems to have been bad/corrupt government making his life hell.

Part of the suicide note relates to healthcare:
” the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.”

http://embeddedart.com/

Slides fav beverage down the bar to ES.

That’s got to rate as one of the SIMPLEST questions and most PIERCING questions of all time.

Good one, TP.

My Guess?

Dem Senators are now totally fucked (of their own doing) between a rock and a hard place.

They were bought off with campaign finance money from PhRMA, private ins and the bid med complex, thinking they could fool their constituents and keep votes for ’10.

Only now, the voters are turning on them, they smell it, they know it.

And if they act for the voters, they lost campaign finance funding and November keeps creeping up on them daily, and rapidly.

Stuck, they are by now realizing they CAN’T fool their constituents and are losing votes, and knowing if they act to keep votes, they lose the big corp funding.

Delicious!!!

Whoops, you got there before I did, congrats.

Not so disgusting to me as I watch them senators squirm in the deep pile of shit they created for themselves!

Voters almost have them by their balls at this point!!

Delicious to watch!!!

Now’s the time for voters and progs to SQUEEZE them balls more and more . . .

Agreed.

Sargeant’s article is a Veal Pen Wish List.

Jon Walker’s pointing out things Sargeant and the Veal Pen won’t address because those things upset the Veal Pen’s Status Quo, money flow to corps and that would interfere with campaign financing for Dem’s in ’10 and ’12.

I’m with Jon Walker.

The Byrd rule isn’t in the Constitution — it is simply another Senate rule that they use to, um, not do stuff. Every time someone says, “remember the Byrd rule” I want to say, “WHY?”

Telling the American people they can’t have what they clearly want because of a rule the Senate made for itself in the nineteen-seventies is obstructionist on its face. They need to repeal the Byrd rule, if necessary, or just ignore it.

And if they can’t, well there’s this: the PO saves $25,000,000,000 off the deficit in ten years. That sounds “budget-y savingish” to me.

This whole discussion using needless extraneous terms does nothing but cloud and confuse the issue.

Or clarify the issue. The Senate doesn’t have 60 votes to pass the current House bill. The Senate cannot pass regulatory reforms under reconciliation. Hence, the only option (if you want regulatory reform) is to basically amend the already passed Senate bill with an additional budget-only bill. (What TarHeelDem said above.)

They need to repeal the Byrd rule, if necessary, or just ignore it.

But the Byrd rule isn’t the problem: getting 50 Senators to support a reconciliation fix, with or without a PO, such that the House will pass it, is the problem. Scrapping the Byrd rule, or starting over completely, doesn’t change the fact that Senate support for a progressive bill doesn’t (yet) exist.

“…isn’t the problem: getting 50 Senators to support a reconciliation fix, with or without a PO….”
The time has come to force a vote on the PO. It doesn’t matter who votes for or against it, at least there would be a hard record of where each Senator stands, allowing voters to make informed decisions.

Seeker, You are ABSOLUTELY right! Our elected Dems have made a science of saying they’re “for” issues important to all of us, that somehow never come up for a vote. I’d love to see who would dare vote against Dorgan’s Amendmendant. They must be forced to vote on issues they know are crucial to voters. This is the ONLY way we can counter lobbyist influence.

And to think this won’t even push them to address the problems that push him over the edge -

Unfair Tax System – Cha-Ching!

Broken Health Car System – Cha-Ching!

Mass Corruption – Cha-Ching!

Seems his only option was to act out, because frankly our so-called “civil” way of doing sure isn’t getting the results desired…

Sanders amendment would save even more….

I think your sarcasm is spot on.

Democrats only got Obama elected when he made health care reform a very high priority and when he opposed mandates and supported the public option.

If they pass a bill with mandates and no PO they might as well pack it in and go to Vancouver to watch some Olympics games. Even if they kill the mandates and PO they can pass something, but it will have to be deemed a failure…a failure to get Obama’s campaign promises done.

What’s the point of supporting political candidates if they would stab you in the back on (what they allege) is their number one issue?

Dems will be standing together whether they want to be or not. They pass it, they get to keep playing. They fail to pass it, they lose to the idiots.

Oh, and the clock is running. Letting time run out is not a viable excuse for failure.

We despise Corporatist Dems who vote with the prevailing political winds or what they think are the prevailing winds. If they actually did sense them, they would have supported the Public Option lockstep. But no, then they couldn’t get pat on the back for deficit peacockery from the MSM or get those handy corporate donations.