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I don't think Joe Lieberman will allow a public option. I might be wrong, but it seems he's firmly planted himself against such a socialistic takeover of yet another private industry.

"They are going to have to drop some things . . . the obvious being the public option"—a controversial, government-run insurance program that Mr. Lieberman adamantly opposes on philosophical and economic grounds. Unlike some Democrats who have criticized it but remained open to negotiation, he says he is not bluffing.

"I'm being more stubborn and certain about this . . . I think it's such a significant step for the country to create another entitlement program and to have the government going into a business, I feel like I've got to say no."

(emboldenings mine)

There is no constitutional guarantee of health care for citizens. So, the government needs to forget trying to provide health care. Regulation of the health care providers, that's fine; we're into medicare and those entitlements already. Let's not expand those. We simply can't afford it. And, there's more important things to consider, things that are well within the constitution's guidelines.

More Joe Liberman...

Mr. Lieberman says the Democrats' "political problems" come from "supporting two goals which don't go together"—increasing coverage and reducing health-care costs. The bill needs more of the latter. He'll push to finance it with a cap on the tax exclusion Americans get through their employers for health plans because this exclusion, he says, has the "most effect on creating incentives not to overuse the insurance system." He will also work with Republicans to enact malpractice reform.

Does he risk overplaying his hand? Maine Republican Olympia Snowe has suggested she'd support a "trigger" for a public option, and if Democrats win her over, they don't need Mr. Lieberman. He responds that he's not alone. "[Arkansas] Sen. [Blanche] Lincoln, when she spoke explaining why she was voting [to go to debate], was very absolute about her opposition to the public option. I think there's at least Blanche and me, and maybe one or two others."

Mr. Reid's problem is that liberals are threatening to bolt if the bill doesn't include a public option. Mr. Lieberman is unsympathetic. "Some people say to me, 'You would stop health-care reform because of the public option? I mean, you support a lot of this stuff!' So I say, I'll ask it another way: 'You mean the people who are supporting the public option, which is new to this debate, would stop all these reforms because they are stubborn?'"

The Huffpo makes a big deal (full headline!) concerning Obama's Sunday afternoon speech, with full-blown silence as to the public option...

Obama Silent On Public Option In Speech To Senators

As President Obama finished his speech to the Democratic caucus in the Capitol's Mansfield Room on Sunday afternoon, Joe Lieberman made his way over to Harry Reid.

The independent who still caucuses with Democrats wanted to point something out to the Majority Leader: Obama didn't mention the public option.

Lieberman was beaming as he left the room and happy to re-point it out when HuffPost asked him what Obama had said about the public health insurance option, perhaps the most contentious issue still facing Democrats as they negotiate their way toward a final health care reform bill.

"Well, it was interesting to me -- of course everybody hears with their own ears -- that he didn't say anything about the public option," said Lieberman. "In other words, when he outlined how far we've come on the bill, he talked about the cost-containment provisions; he talked about the insurance market reforms; and he talked about enabling 30 million more people to get insurance. He said these are historic accomplishments, the most significant social legislation, or whatever you call it, in decades, so don't lose it."

Obama spoke for roughly 30 minutes and did not take questions, senators said afterward.

Obama spoke in diatribe for 30 minutes to his captive audience of Democrat Senators (and Joe Lieberman) and never uttered a word about the public option. That says all. Obama desperately wants any bill at this point; to avoid the failure stigma.

Mark my words: the public option is dead.

(I really like Joe Liberman; if someone else had been on the ticket with him instead of that fool Al Gore in 2000, things might have worked out differently for all.)

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Looks the the passage glow Nancy Pelosi, House Democrats and President Obama are self-immersing in is fool's glow.

From the AP...

House health care overhaul faces Senate stone wall

WASHINGTON – The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.

Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people."

The problem is that the Senate won't run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.

If a government plan is part of the deal, "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.

"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.

Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.

There's quite a few differences in the bills. The biggie is the so-called "Public Option", the stinky finger that would allow the U.S. Government to compete with private insurance carriers. Such an option is anathema to the American way of doing business, and reeks of European socialism. Of course, BHO and many of the current House occupants are far-left Democrats; they are built of socialist straw; that's the way they are politically wired.  And the 'needy' and 'greedy' who make up their constituents reward their socialist bent with support and votes.

We, as a nation, simply don't have the money to support all of the nation's so-called needy with a Government option. Joe Lieberman knows that, knows that a Public Option will become the largest entitlement program ever introduced, and vows to stop it cold.

“If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not” support the legislation, Lieberman told “Fox News Sunday.”
He can stop it, too. I've always admired Joe Lieberman, for standing up to the far-Left elements of the Democrat party, standing up to Howard Dean and beating his hand-picked leftist challenger to win his seat back in 2006. Even though he caucuses with the Dems, he provides a damper to their tendency to completely fall off the left side of the porch. And they hate him for it.

So, with this massive stinker-Health care bill sitting in the punchbowl just outside the Senate chambers, we will now see attempts to come up with a Senate consensus bill that won't break our Nation, and help good people get the heath care they need...and no more.

We cannot give in to the far Left's desire to drive the U.S.A. to socialism via extortion.

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An interesting development in the Health Care debate. Joe Lieberman, driven from the Democratic party by Howard Dean and the far-left cabal he represents, has poured a load of Connecticut molasses into Barack Obama's signature power grab...

Lieberman Suggests Health Care Reform May Have to Wait

“I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy’s out of recession,” Mr. Lieberman said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “There’s no reason we have to do it all now, but we do have to get started. And I think the place to start is cost health delivery reform and insurance market reforms.”

Nope, no mention of single-payer or government-run health care there. Insurance market reform is a pleasant idea; one needed change would be to allow health insurance companies to sell across state lines. We, consumers, could reward the better plans with our business; competition would ensure the lowest prices possible. But Democrats don't care for that sort of thing...if a health insurance consumer purchased a policy in a state that has fewer onerous regulations and mandates (those mandates and regulations increase the cost of a policy) then consumers would, in essence, 'vote' with their dollars against that state's policies. Can't have that; Democrats want to completely control every level of health care by way of mandate, driving the prices to the high-pitched levels we see today. Republicans wanted this sort of reform; but guess what? Democrats opposed it...

“Beware, some of you state legislators,” said Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance. “The introduction of the Health Care Choice Act portends that your days of micromanaging health insurance, driving up premiums--and the number of uninsured--with costly mandates and guaranteed issue are near an end.

“Should this bill become law,” noted Matthews, “Americans will have access to affordable health insurance coverage despite many of your best efforts to deny them that opportunity.”

“We need the opportunity to shop in a national marketplace,” said John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. “If we can buy wine across state lines, why not buy health insurance as well?”

The Health Care Choice Act of 2005 (HR 2355 and S.1015) died from Democrat's maneuverings. H.R.4460 (2007) also died in committee.

Now, Republican Senators have introduced another 'better than Obamacare' Health Care reform bill, the "Patient's Choice Act of 2009"...

A key feature of the Patients’ Choice Act is a $5,700 annual tax credit for families ($2,300 for individuals) designed to cover employees’ out-of-pocket share of employer-sponsored health plans—an average annual cost of $4,200 per family.

The provision is similar to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign proposal to reform the tax treatment of health insurance by offering tax credits to help workers afford their choice of health coverage. But the Patients’ Choice Act doesn’t alter the tax code for employers, meaning businesses won’t see their tax burdens spike as a result of their employees’ newfound freedom to choose their own health care plans.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, explained the benefit to be gained from revising the federal government’s tax treatment of employer health plans in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in June 2008.

“Imagine what the world would be like if workers [understood] that today it was costing them $10,000 a year in take-home pay for their employer-sponsored insurance, and that could be $7,000 and they could have $3,000 more in their pockets today if we could relieve these inefficiencies out of the health system,” Orszag said.

The Republicans’ plan would increase workers’ take-home pay and decrease their tax burdens, allowing them to better afford the health insurance policy and benefits of their choice. [emphasis mine -ed.]

And, believe it or not, those 'evil' Republicans also included coverage for 'the poor' in this plan...

Better Care for the Poor

Another provision of the Patients’ Choice Act is aimed specifically at lower-income Americans who are currently relegated to bureaucrat-run programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Recognizing those government-administered programs are so inefficient and undesirable that nearly half of prior-enrolled individuals and families decline to sign up for more than one year of nearly free benefits, the act’s sponsors included a provision establishing a path to private coverage and efficient medical care for those poorest Americans.

The act would provide low-income Americans with $5,000 debit cards for purchasing private insurance or paying for health care out of pocket, thereby giving them the resources to acquire effective health care.

Up to 25 percent of any unspent dollars on the debit card would roll over and be added to the next year’s balance, creating an incentive for recipients to exercise wisdom and restraint in using their health care money.

There's a win-win situation for health care reform. Why do the Democrats not favor this sort of intelligent reform? Maybe because it's introduced by Republicans?




It's all about power. Democrats are statists who prefer a state-run program, so as to garner the votes from sheeple that are attracted to something for nothing; the promise of cradle-to-grave care given by the Government-as-Nanny state. With those votes they stay in power.

The sheeple who vote for these statists don't know (or don't care) that government-run single-payer health systems will take away their freedoms to choose doctors and decide what sort of treatments they want, and would drive up health care costs (just as Medicare and Medicaid drove up health care costs, starting in 1965). And, if a thing is perceived to be 'free', freeloaders will clog the system. Since nothing in life is truly 'free', we will see health care costs skyrocketing; the only control for those out-of-control costs (and for the freeloaders clogging the portals) would be health care rationing. Death panels, anyone?

It's as simple as TANSTAFFL.

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Fred Thompson, by all accounts, knocks one out of the park, and delivers the best speech to date. Video here, transcript here.

On Sarah Palin...

"Speaking of the vice presidential nominee, what a breath of fresh air Gov. Sarah Palin is.

"She is from a small town, with small town values, but that's not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family.

"Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit. Well, give me a tough Alaskan governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the union -- and won -- over the beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week.

"Let's be clear ... the selection of Gov. Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic. She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment.

Sound like anyone else we know?"

Fred then speaks of John McCain, as a story of true character. There's absolutely no comparison...John McCain's fire-and-torture tested youth to the shoddy pretension and the embracing of leftism and socialism of his opponent's youth. Service to country vs. coke and dope, Saul Alinski and 20 years of the Reverend Wright.

Fred Thompson on Barack Hussein Obama...

"History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for president. Apparently they believe that he would match up well with the history making, Democrat controlled Congress. History making because it's the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation's history.

"Together, they would take on these urgent challenges with protectionism, higher taxes and an even bigger bureaucracy.

"And a Supreme Court that could be lost to liberalism for a generation."

Joe Lieberman, ex-Democrat who ran with Al Gore in 2000, also has much to say about BHO:

"Sen. Barack Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who can do great things for our country in the years ahead," Lieberman said. "But my friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record - not in these tough times for America."

There's no love in the new Leftist-Democrat world for such a brave man as Joe Lieberman. Hat's off to his bravery; he's certain to catch hell. Another Democrat who left the party before bowing to the neo-fascism that's taken over once-great party.

Sarah Palin is getting a hell of a workover by the MSM and the hateful left. Although the left invented and espouses identity politics, any of those 'beliefs' can easily be thrown aside for the greater 'good' of securing a victory at all costs. They, the pundits and bloggers for the left, supported and unquestioned by the MSM, feel that damaging a 17-year-old for their cause is perfectly OK.

For BHO, a baby is a punishment; Sarah Palin calls any new life a blessing. How easy it would've been for Bristol to slip away and, 30 minutes later, be not-pregnant. That would've been the easy choice; the choice of low-character and no-morals. A Democrat's 'choice' is the choice of death; Bristol's choice, the choice for a new life. There's your HOPE, Obama, soon to be a squalling infant, a bright spot destined to go forward to no telling what sort of destiny. Certainly not a red spot in a stainless steel pan.

The fierceness of the left's attacks on Sarah Palin is simply the guilt they harbor for their own bad choices.

Jonah Goldberg links to a post by Joseph Bottum, titled "The Politics of Blood". Joseph links these quotes from Daily KOS...

"I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to destroy the Republican Party as it exists today as well as everything it stands for.

"If health insurance for all, an end to the Iraq War, an end to torture and illegal wiretapping, and a sane energy policy can be obtained at the price of destroying one teenage girl, her family, and the surrendering our self-respect I see that as a cheap trade.

"Go talk about nobility of purpose to those 4,000+ dead American soldiers in Iraq."

and

"This is about Power . . . How it is obtained—and how it is wielded in ways that affects all of us.

"Are you telling me that you would not use character-destroying lies to ensure a war against Iran does not occur?

"Are you telling me you would not spread lies about a man’s integrity, even if it defeated a candidate who take away the right to choose?

"Are you telling me you would not destroy the love a family holds for one another, even if it meant letting someone who would destroy the constitution become president?

"None of use would use these tactics in a perfect world. It is not a perfect world. It is a fallen world. We have to judge costs and benefits, not moral absolutes. I know this is the way to fanaticism and destruction—believe me I do. But, when we face opponents such as the ones we face . . . what else is there for us to do?

"What choice do we have? When faced with monsters, we have to be monstrous ourselves."

Yeah. We've seen the monsters.

But, you see, the monsters always lose.

Joseph's final line is worth reading; go there, and see for yourself.

You know, if Joe Lieberman had run with any other Candidate in 2000 besides that robotile pinprick AlGore, I wouldn't have minded seeing him win that election.



If you for some reason haven't seen the text of Joe Lieberman's May 16 speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition (and I can understand why Mainstream Media embarrasingly chucked it under the rug, since it definitely isn't Harry Reid/Heidi Fleiss Nancy Pelosi friendly.) Joe Lieberman explains in terms that even simple Democrats should be able to comprehend, why we should not cut and run from our obligations to finish what we started in Iraq. I'll just hit some of the highlights here; you really should get over there and read the entire thing for yourself.

"We gather at a critical time for the future of our country. The war in Iraq has now become the defining issue for this Congress and for this presidency — although the decisions we will make in the weeks and months ahead about Iraq will have consequences that reach far beyond the terms of anyone now in office.



"Part of the disagreement we face over Iraq comes down to a genuine difference of opinion.



"On the one hand, there are those who believe, as I do, that the struggle against Islamist extremism really is the central challenge of our time, and that, as General David Petraeus — our commander in Iraq — recently said, Iraq is now the central front of the war against Islamist extremism.



"On the other hand, there are those who reject this view — who genuinely believe that the threat of Islamist extremism is overstated, or that Iraq is a distraction from the “real” war on terror, or that the war there is lost, or not worth fighting to win.



"It is my deeply held conviction that these people are not only wrong, they are disastrously wrong — and that the withdrawal they demand would be a moral and security catastrophe for the United States, for Iraq, and for the entire Middle East, including Israel and our moderate Arab allies.



"Let there be no doubt — an American defeat in Iraq would be a victory for Al Qaeda and Iran… the two most threatening enemies we face in the world today. It would vindicate the hope of our enemies that America is weak and that we can be driven to retreat by terrorism, and it would confirm the fear of our friends — not only in Iraq, but throughout the world — that we are unreliable allies who will abandon them in the face of danger."



...



"But too much of the debate we are having today about withdrawal from Iraq has little or nothing to do with principle, or with reality in Iraq.



"It is about politics and partisanship here in Washington.



"For many Democrats, if President Bush is for it, they must be against it. If the war is going badly, it is bad for Republicans and it is good for Democrats. It is as simple as that, and it is as wrong as that.



"For many Republicans, the unpopularity of this war and this President has begun to shake their will. They say that they have no choice but to abandon General Petraeus and his strategy because the American people tell the pollsters they want out. If previous generations of American leaders had allowed their conduct of war to be shaped by partisanship or public opinion polls, we would not be the strong and free nation we are blessed to be today.



"Republicans in Congress delude themselves if they think they will be helping either themselves, their party, or their country if they now attempt to wash their hands of Iraq, out of a sudden sense of political anxiety.



"Democrats in Congress delude themselves if they think they will not be held accountable for the bloody consequences of the retreat from Iraq they seek.



"The fact is, a loss to Al Qaeda and Iran in Iraq would be devastating to our security. These are fateful days and critical decisions we are making about Iraq. We must make them with our eye on the safety of America’s next generation, not the outcome of America’s next election.



"It is to the everlasting credit of President Bush that in the war against Islamist extremism he has shown the courage and steadfastness to stand against the political passions of the moment.



"I have never hesitated to express disagreement with the President on any issue when I felt he was wrong — and I have criticized his administration many times for the serious mistakes I believe it made in prosecuting the war in Iraq.



"But let me tell you this: I believe that each of us should be grateful that we have a commander-in-chief who does not believe that decisions about war should be driven by poll numbers. And each of us should be grateful that we have a commander-in-chief who does not confuse what is popular with what is right for our security as a nation. The public opinion polls may not reflect this today, but I believe history will tomorrow."



...



"My friends, now is not the time for despair. Now is the time for resolve.



"Now is not the time for reflexive partisanship and pandering to public opinion. Now is the time for the kind of patriotism and principle America’s voters have always honored.



"I ask you to plead with every member of Congress you can in the days and weeks ahead —



"Do not surrender to hopelessness.



"Do not succumb to defeat.



"Do not give in to fear.



"Rise above the political pressures of the moment to do what is right for America."

Yes, Joe Lieberman is too good for the Democratic Party. He should be heeded by every American who can think, and comprehend, without having to latch on to a public opinion poll. Americans deserve more than Poll Leadership. Our soldiers deserve more than having to hear continuous bellyaching from pandering politicos who have only their own election results and party line to consider.



Listen to Joe, and if you are a Democrat, try to think for yourself for a minute. Look past your Bush Derangement Syndrome, and put the country first, for a change.



h/t Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler (nice doggie~!)

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