December 2nd, 2009:

Re:  Reid set to unveil new public option, breaking Senate impasse on healthcare – TheHill.com

A new measure on the public option will be unveiled next week, which Senate Democratic leaders hope will break the logjam on healthcare reform.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), who has been tapped by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to come up with a Plan B approach to the public option controversy that has divided Democrats, has been working closely with liberal and conservative Democrats, as well as Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

Yes. Let’s not forget how we got here. Without Republican obstruction, there would already be a health care bill passed. If there were no Republican filibuster of the cloture vote, we could tell conservatives like Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), and all the Republicans to go skip a rope. Senate Majority Leader Reid could easily find 50 votes to pass health care reform that has been talked about for 60 years, but hasn’t had the political will behind it until now.

Don’t you wish there was a way to go ahead and pass the legislation over the Republican’s filibuster? Don’t you wish there was a way to override their obstructionism and move the bill forward? It would be great to have some countermeasure, some parliamentary maneuver that would not allow a filibuster.

Wait! There is! It’s called the Reconciliation Process! According to Wiki, “Reconciliation is a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow a contentious budget bill to be considered without being subject to filibuster.”

Don’t get your hopes up. Our fearless Senate leader, Reid, wants us to forget about the reconciliation process because… well, he just does. Also, the Republicans want the Democrats to forget this whole silly idea of a public option and just give more money to the health insurance industry, and never mind that 40 million Americans can’t afford it.

The logjam on health care reform is the conservative’s making. It’s their baby. They lovingly roll it and pat it and mark it with a C. They know that if they can send this bill back to committee, then that will be its death knell and Obama will suffer. Oh, how he will suffer!

Along with the logjam, they will own the death of the bill too. They will speak of it’s death as if it were the Democrats’ fault because the liberals were just too liberal, if they speak of it at all. Conservatives will kill our greatest chance at health care reform and then go around like little gods gloating about it on the talk shows. But, nevertheless, they will own the outcome of it’s failure as surely as they own the obstruction now. That outcome is the suffering and dying of thousands of Americans – way more than 9/11 – in the years to come. Through conservatism, insurance companies will be allowed to continue to pad their profits by denying treatments and low-balling payments to hospitals causing even more personal bankruptcies and foreclosures. They will own it all – all the pain and suffering unto death that could have been prevented if the people had public access to health care.

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