One Step Closer

And one step farther beyond:

WASHINGTON -- The Senate is ready to begin a volatile, high-stakes healthcare debate that's sure to be punctuated by tense and unpredictable battles over some of the most incendiary issues in American politics today.

Debate on the $848 billion bill to overhaul the nation's healthcare system is expected to start next week, after the Senate returns from its Thanksgiving recess, and many lawmakers already consider it a golden opportunity to win long-sought projects and local aid for their constituents.

The flashpoints will be familiar -- abortion, federal deficits, government involvement in healthcare decisions and other hot topics -- and many Democrats already have said they want to see, and are well-positioned to seek, changes in the bill.

In fact, the legislation is moving ahead only because it got 60 votes Saturday night to proceed -- the minimum needed -- two weeks after the House of Representatives' version squeaked through by five votes.

I had a feeling that Lieberman, nor any of the other shills for the insurance industry operating under the sham of "protecting the American people from Big Government" would hold true to their promise of filibustering this bill to death.

 

Seriously, how hard is this to do?

 

If anything, the Democratic Senators who have come out and stated opposition to the bill, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Bob Nelson, all stand to see hundreds of millions of dollars funneled into their states with the introduction of a public option.

 

Contrast that with the $223 million dollars Alaska tried to rip off the US taxpayers for that "Bridge to Nowhere". At least these hundreds of thousands of dollars give us tens of millions of healthier, happier and more productive Americans, not a slightly easier access to an island for a few thousand tourists each year.

 

77% or so of Americans WANT some form of the public option. That's all you three need to know (I drop Lieberman off the list because he's so far up the asses of the insurance companies, they're lending him out to do colonoscopies).

 

So what to do to bring our little ducklings back into line? After all, this is all about getting the re-elected, and the millions in campaign contributions they can garner by holding Americans hostage.

 

Threatening them with primary opponents might work, except it didn't do much with Lieberman except make him a little more likely to play the "leave the caucus" card. And it would be difficult to keep three senators in line like that.

 

There's a deal to be made here that doesn't involve taking the public option off the table. Unfortunately, I do not know what that deal is, and there's a kicker: it has to be structured such that these three jackasses can save face (even tho you and I will know they folded cynically). I find it hard to believe that they would either turn their backs on hundreds of millions in pork OR on tens of millions of Americans.