or something like that….
First up; you can head on over and read “The One’s” desperate attempt to keep the debate afloat. I would sit here, and play the quote and challenge game; but it’s Sunday and I have a knee-ache, that is about to kill me. So, I will refrain. I think most of you all know how I feel about the damn thing. So, I will just let you go read for yourself.
Second up is the revelation that the public option might just be dead….CNN Reports:
A key Senate negotiator said Sunday that President Barack Obama should drop his push for a government-funded public health insurance option because the Senate will never pass it.
Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said it was futile to continue to “chase that rabbit” due to the lack of 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
“The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been,” Conrad said on “FOX News Sunday.”
Conrad is one of six Senate Finance Committee members — three Democrats and three Republicans — who are negotiating a compromise health-care bill that would be the only bipartisan proposal so far.
Three House bills and another Senate version have all been proposed by Democrats, and all contain provisions for a public health insurance option intended to compete against private insurers.
Republican opponents argue the public option is a step toward the government taking over the health care industry. Many Democrats argue that it would not have that effect.
Conrad has proposed creating non-profit health insurance cooperatives that could negotiate coverage as a collective for their members.
He said Sunday that such cooperatives would provide the competition sought by Obama and Democratic leaders to force private insurers to hold down costs and improve practices.
Of course, Liberals are NOT happy about this, as you can see here and here for yourself. Now, at this point you are most likely expecting me to say something snarky or nasty about this. Well, surprise. Believe it or not (Ripley?) I can certainly understand why those on the left would be upset at this. This is because I understand what is happening here. The President and the Congress are capitulating to the backlash from those of us, who do not want to see the Government involved in the process of health-care. The reason why this is so upsetting to the liberal crowd is this. The people who voted for Obama; voted for change, they trusted that Obama would be to shatter the “Business As usual” Government of Washington D.C.; Instead what he did was, is bring his own brand of “Business as usual” to Washington D.C. This has not flown well with those who actually voted for change in Washington D.C. As matter of fact, one of Obama’s own cabinet members was boo’ed and heckled at the Netroots conference that took places yesterday.
I have been pretty good at making predictions on this blog, so far. So, I am going to make a another public prediction. I predict that if come September, the Congress and Senate comes back, and this Health-care dies or gets shelved. That there will be blood. No, not literal blood. But, political blood. The sharks will be circling and quite frankly, it will get horribly ugly. You think the vitriol towards Bush was bad? You wait till this Health-Care Bill dies. You think Obama’s poll numbers are bad now? Wait till this all goes down. It is going to get really bad. Let’s just say that there are going to be a whole bunch of Liberal news organizations that are going to suddenly discover their objectivity again. Because for the last six months, The President has been getting a free pass, but now, the honeymoon is over, and the folks, as Bill O’Reilly calls them; are wanting to see what this guy is really going to do. The Liberal Establishment, and yes that includes the press, wants to know, is this guy going to deliver or not? If the President shows any sort of weakness at all, I predict that the media will go after him and the darling new President will become the next feeding frenzy.
Which brings me to my last point. What exactly is the point of having a health-care bill without a public option? I thought that is what the purpose of getting this bill passed in the first place! To me, stripping that option out, would spell disaster for all involved. Personally, if I were the Democrats, I would simply scrap the bill and start over, or put it off till after the elections. Because taking that out, would defeat the very purpose for having a health-care reform. Let me be clear, I do not support the idea of any kind of Government health-care at all. But it would seem that the Democrats would want to avoid shooting themselves in the foot like this. But then again, I have seen dumber things done by liberals in the past.