About 2010, here is one thing I can say with certainty. Every cent of every dollar I spend on political contributions in the year 2010 is going to go to whatever Democrat is running against Joe Lieberman in his next election. I don’t care who it is, as long as it isn’t Joe.
According to the New York Times:
The day before, Mr. Lieberman threatened on national television to join the Republicans in blocking the health care bill, President Obama’s chief domestic initiative. Within hours, he was in a meeting at the Capitol with top White House officials.
And on Monday night, Democratic senators emerged from a tense 90-minute closed-door session and suggested that they were on the verge of bowing to Mr. Lieberman’s main demands: that they scrap a plan to let people buy into Medicare beginning at age 55, and scotch even a fallback version of a new government-run health insurance plan, or public option.
At this point, the health care reform bill has been stripped of so many provisions, it’s basically meaningless, and will serve only to help insurance companies — the same carrion birds that have been picking over the corpses of middle America for years now. There’s no point whatsoever in trying for reform. Ridiculous, futile and waste of time.
UPDATE: Howard Dean is apparently calling for the Senate to kill the Senate version of the bill as worthless and to return to the house bill through the reconciliation process. Probably the best idea for retaining some semblance of actual reform.