Recently in Health Category

They may have to move the final vote to Sunday or next week:

A House leader says Democrats haven't yet lined up enough votes to pass their health care overhaul bill.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland says the vote that House Democrats had scheduled for Saturday could slip to Sunday or early next week.

Hoyer acknowledged to reporters Friday that Democratic leaders don't yet have the 218 votes needed to pass President Barack Obama's historic health overhaul initiative.

Evidently, the Republicans aren't the only ones purging moderates:

Democratic Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu is out as keynote speaker for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party's annual fund-raising dinner next week because party leaders dislike her stance on health care reform, county Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel said today.

That didn't take long, did it? I figured that Reid would make an offer Lieberman couldn't refuse:

Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter.

[...]

But sources said Reid's staff is telling liberal interest groups that Lieberman (Conn.) has assured Reid he will vote with Democrats in the necessary procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill.

Lieberman's spokesman said Monday that nothing has changed from last week, when the senator said he would support calling up the bill but would block a final vote.

"Sen. Lieberman has made it clear that he will vote for the motion to proceed to the healthcare bill but will oppose cloture on a final bill if it contains a public option because he believes that it would worsen our national debt problem," said Lieberman aide Marshall Wittmann.

BTW, those House members who vote "yes" on the House bill will be voting for 111 new "bureaucracies." Thanks, Dems! Just what we needed, a more bloated, ineffective federal government. They can't even handle the bureaucracy they already have.

Update: At least one Blue Dog Democrat is willing to admit that a Republican trifecta would impact the healthcare vote:

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) argued that an election night rebuke for Democratic candidates across the nation could lead some in the party to rethink their plans on healthcare reform and other issues.

"It looks as though the anger that has been boiling up the last couple of months is going to lead to a pretty high turnout from Republicans and from people who are concerned about increased spending," Altmire said Monday evening during an appearance on Fox Business Network.

"And I do think that if the results show Republicans have a pretty good night, that probably is going to lead some Democrats to think that, going into next year, we need to take a second look at the way that we've done a lot of bills we've addressed up to this point," the Pennsylvania congressman added.

He's not in favor of the public option at all:

"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 said that he'd vote against a public option plan "even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line."

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"I've told Sen. Reid that if the bill stays as it is now I will vote against cloture," he said.

"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 who 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."

BTW, no one is fooled by Reid's attempt to make the public option more acceptable since we all know that only places like Texas have the votes to opt out of the plan. States like California, NY, and NJ would be stuck with it.

Update: The House doesn't have enough for a "robust" public option.

Reid getting hit from both the left and the right, not a good time for him to be crafting controversial legislation given the fact that he's up for re-election next year.

My question to this nurse is, does she realize that there's nothing stopping the government from making the same exact decisions that the insurance companies make? The government will be insuring hundreds of millions more people than they insure now (much more than Canada and England combined) and will have to cut costs some way. They don't have to make a profit but they will only be able to spend what's been allocated (and what they collect in fees). Just look to Medicaid and see how many treatments and tests they deny and you'll get a sense of what the public option might look like.

The current system has flaws that can be addressed by health care reform but replacing it with what will surely be a substandard, government-run system is not the way to fix it. We will have the same problems we have now, plus entirely new ones. Don't kid yourself that if you remove profit from the system you'll get a more generous health care system. It will be much more stingy as it continually tries to keep down costs (we already know that medical devices will cost more and that doctor reimbursements will be reduced).

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