Epicurus
Reasonable
Let's hope so.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp#14431
Did the Medicare Buy-In Just Die on Face the Nation?
On Face The Nation, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson made it pretty clear they weren't inclined to support the Reid "compromise" featuring a Medicare buy-in. Nelson said he thought such a buy-in is a bad idea, and Lieberman noted that on "the so-called Medicare buy-in -- the opposition to it has been growing as the week has gone on. Though I don't know exactly what's in it, from what I hear I certainly would have a hard time voting for it because it has some of the same infirmities that the public option did."
Reid might be able to arrange to get a jerry-rigged Congressional Budget Office score Monday or Tuesday that seems acceptable (the preferred way of doing this so far has been to have the legislation feature ten years of (alleged) spending cuts and (real) taxes and pay-ins, and then only five or six years of benefits). But it sounds as if Lieberman and Nelson aren't willing to play along with the notion that the way to save Medicare is to expand the number of subsidized, adversely-self-selected people in it.
But who's going finally to just say no? There must be a dozen moderate and/or red-state Democrats who would love for Reid's bill to die, but it's hard to be the one who definitively goes first. Lieberman and/or Nelson could do it. Or it might be that the easiest way for everything to collapse in the next couple of days would be for a gang of six (or whatever) to emerge--say, Lieberman, Nelson and Blanche Lincoln, and John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and Judd Gregg--who would agree to work together in the new year on bipartisan legislative efforts to pass sensible incremental reforms with substantial bipartisan support. Word leaking out of one meeting of such a group would put the Reid legislation out of its misery.
If moderate Democrats could say in good faith that the failure of Reid's bill now doesn't mean there won't be health care reform this congressional session--and there's no reason they shouldn't be able to say that, as there would be huge pressure on both parties next year to deliver something--then Democrats would have an easier time breaking ranks. Indeed, they could say such an outcome would be more in their party's, and their president's, interest, than jamming though a startlingly unpopular and incoherently bloated piece of legislation on a party-line vote. And they would be right.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp#14431
Did the Medicare Buy-In Just Die on Face the Nation?
On Face The Nation, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson made it pretty clear they weren't inclined to support the Reid "compromise" featuring a Medicare buy-in. Nelson said he thought such a buy-in is a bad idea, and Lieberman noted that on "the so-called Medicare buy-in -- the opposition to it has been growing as the week has gone on. Though I don't know exactly what's in it, from what I hear I certainly would have a hard time voting for it because it has some of the same infirmities that the public option did."
Reid might be able to arrange to get a jerry-rigged Congressional Budget Office score Monday or Tuesday that seems acceptable (the preferred way of doing this so far has been to have the legislation feature ten years of (alleged) spending cuts and (real) taxes and pay-ins, and then only five or six years of benefits). But it sounds as if Lieberman and Nelson aren't willing to play along with the notion that the way to save Medicare is to expand the number of subsidized, adversely-self-selected people in it.
But who's going finally to just say no? There must be a dozen moderate and/or red-state Democrats who would love for Reid's bill to die, but it's hard to be the one who definitively goes first. Lieberman and/or Nelson could do it. Or it might be that the easiest way for everything to collapse in the next couple of days would be for a gang of six (or whatever) to emerge--say, Lieberman, Nelson and Blanche Lincoln, and John McCain, Olympia Snowe, and Judd Gregg--who would agree to work together in the new year on bipartisan legislative efforts to pass sensible incremental reforms with substantial bipartisan support. Word leaking out of one meeting of such a group would put the Reid legislation out of its misery.
If moderate Democrats could say in good faith that the failure of Reid's bill now doesn't mean there won't be health care reform this congressional session--and there's no reason they shouldn't be able to say that, as there would be huge pressure on both parties next year to deliver something--then Democrats would have an easier time breaking ranks. Indeed, they could say such an outcome would be more in their party's, and their president's, interest, than jamming though a startlingly unpopular and incoherently bloated piece of legislation on a party-line vote. And they would be right.
