From Flopping Aces

Man, the lefties must really be hating Liebeman nowadays:

“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”…

Lieberman did say he’s “strongly inclined” to vote to proceed to the debate, but that he’ll ultimately vote to block a floor vote on the bill if it isn’t changed first…

“I can’t see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company,” Lieberman added. “It’s just asking for trouble – in the end, the taxpayers are going to pay and probably all people will have health insurance are going to see their premiums go up because there’s going to be cost shifting as there has been for Medicare and Medicaid.”

Since that statement came out earlier today the Reid camp…or cheerleaders….have tried to spin it so it doesn’t sound as bad as it really is. I mean how can it be bad if Joe will vote to open floor debate on Reid’s bill? Of course they are leaving out the other vote…the one that closes debate and moves the bill to a vote. Joe says he will NOT vote for that if the public option is there.

Good for him.

RINO Snowe says she won’t vote for the public option either….at least today she is saying it:

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe says she would vote with fellow Republicans to block the Democratic health care overhaul if changes are not made to the version Majority Leader Harry Reid outlined this week.

Karl at Hot Air thinks all this is leading to is Reid being able to say “I tried…but the evil empire struck me down” to his leftist loons.

Reid apparently does not have 60 votes lined up for the public option, though Reid thinks he will have them after the CBO scores it. This move was supposedly forced by the hardcore liberals in the Senate, though this could still be the kabuki by which Reid sheds responsibility for a later failure to include the public option. Either way, the ball is now in the moderates’ court.

But there is more trouble looming for Reid:

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said Tuesday she still can’t support a government-funded insurance option, a day after legislation was unveiled that would give states the choice of whether to participate in the program.

“Creating another government-funded option is not where we’re going. We don’t need to go there,” Lincoln told members of the Arkansas Farm Bureau during a video conference. “A government-funded option is something that I think is not the way to go.”

And Robert Laszewski at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review doesn’t see 60 votes coming anytime soon and does a good job of describing why:

Reid is reportedly going to include a robust Medicare-like public option with a state opt-out. That means there would be a federal Medicare-like public plan but that a state could opt out. Opting out would mean that both houses of a state’s legislature and its governor would have to agree to opt out. That’s a pretty high hurdle and it is not going to appease the moderate Democrats in the Senate, or any Republicans including Snowe, who oppose a robust public option.

We could have a public option only if a “trigger” occurs. That is Senator Snowe’s general idea. OK, define that trigger. Do you think for one moment a liberal’s definition of a trigger will come close to a moderate’s definition of a trigger? It is the last week in October and we’ve been hearing about a trigger for months. Have you seen a definition of it yet?

Then there is the possible course in the House—a public option that has to negotiate with providers just like a private health plan does—“arms’ length negotiations.” For liberals, how is that different than a co-op and its inability to gain any real kind of traction? For moderate Democrats, it will likely be seen as the “wolf in sheep’s clothes.” Maybe a place to compromise but hardly the robust government plan its proponents are looking for and there is no evidence that this idea will attract those moderate Senate Democrats that don’t like the public option.

Then there is the state opt-in. The idea is that both the state’s legislative branches and the governor would have to agree to opt-in. This could well win moderate Democratic support because very few states would do it and it is attractive to states’ rights moderates who would like to see state experimentation. This is a possible place for compromise but hardly a robust public option.

As I have said many times before, there will not be a robust Medicare-like public option or any form of a thinly veiled Medicare-like public option.

And the GOP has found some a backbone:

But before that issue can be joined on the Senate floor, Reid’s first challenge is to gain 60 votes — the number needed to overcome a filibuster by Republicans — just to bring the bill up, a parliamentary maneuver so routine that a vote is rarely required.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, announced that in this case, members of his party will treat it as though it were “a vote on the merits” of a bill he said would “cut Medicare, raise taxes and increase health insurance premiums.” He suggested Democrats could expect campaign commercials next year on the basis of the vote, and recalled that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was ridiculed in his 2004 presidential campaign for having once said he voted for a bill before he voted against it.

For those leftist Democrats the threat means nothing because they were elected in strong leftist strongholds….but the moderates? I think this threat will be taken seriously and some idiot trying to change the name of “public option” won’t help one iota.

All in all, its good news today.

also:

“Public Option” by any other name….

What is it with Democrats always denying who they are and what they’re peddling? Liberalism has a negative stigma attached to it in conservative America; so Democrats now prefer you call them “progressives”. The word “socialist” is the new “N” word, but it describes President Obama’s instinctual gravitations and political inclinations. Why deny it? Why hide from the description? Democrats who revel in communist/Marxist/socialist doctrine should come out of the closet and bask in the transparency of who they are. Be proud! Don’t hide! Don’t obfuscate.

Yet the reason they have an aversion to such “labels”, no matter how descriptively accurate, is because in order to sell any of their bill of goods to the American public, they have to engage in deception. Can you say “stealth socialism”?

“Public option” is now politically damaged goods; so let’s give it a makeover, says Nancy Pelosi, even though poop by any other name still smells like poop:

A government-sponsored “public option” for health care lives, though it may be more attractive to skeptics if it goes by a different moniker, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday.

In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as “the consumer option.” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared by Pelosi’s side and used the term “competitive option.”

Both suggested new terminology might get them past any lingering doubts among the public—or consumers or competitors.

“You’ll hear everyone say, ‘There’s got to be a better name for this,’” Pelosi said. “When people think of the public option, public is being misrepresented, that this is being paid for with their public dollars.”

?…..?……?!

Ah yes, the lure of the free lunch.

The speaker said the “competitive option” idea emerged during her closed-door roundtable at the Sunrise Senior Center with advocates of seniors and others who work with older populations. Wasserman Schultz suggested the term might be here to stay.

“I think she’s going to go up and test-drive it when she goes back to Washington,” Wasserman Schultz said. “It might stick.”

As for having the votes to pass such a measure, both women said a public option would survive. They wouldn’t get into numbers of congressional supporters, but said it was simply a matter of picking which type of public option to pursue.

Finally:

Pravda: America Turning to Socialism “Slowly but Surely”

The big sign indicating this shift was Obama’s decision to abandon Polish and Czech allies in missile defense pact! When the mouthpiece for world communism starts praising Obama, it’s time for a change!

America Moving from Kingdom of Cash to Socialism Slowly but Surely
Pravda
October 19, 2009

Obama’s decision not to build the Missile Defense System in Poland and the Czech Republic and his Noble Prize have not yet been comprehended from a philosophical viewpoint. It’s time to do it.

The last turning point similar to the current one happened approximately 400 years ago. The Western European society discovered a new hierarchy of values. Feudalism that valued service and chivalry was replaced with capitalism. Wealth became the measure of success, and everyone was to care about his own pocket only. The cult of money replaced all other values, including religious.
…
What does Obama’s decision not to build the Eastern European Missile Defense System have to do with all of this? Well, it means that it’s not capitalism that’s undergoing the crisis, but the belief in its high efficiency. And this, in turn, means that America, the bulwark of capitalism, is no longer the boss of the world. And if it’s not the boss any more, it has to be friends with everybody, including Russia. And it’s America’s turn to offer Russia to push the reset button. Or maybe it’s just tired of imposing its rules on others and felt that friendship is more valuable than money and power? If this is the case, we will soon witness another turning point in the world history.

Hmmm… isn’t that what Obama is trying to do? Enslave us all to his big money friends like foreign born George Soros?