There's a lot of posturing going on right now in the Senate with debate ready to commence any day now on their version of healthcare reform.
The latest is Tom Carper simultaneously suggesting that there aren't 60 votes for the opt-out public option, while also floating his idea for a convoluted trigger.
No need to panic. Yet. This is pure posturing. Flail around as if there's a crisis, then -- POOF! -- lookee here! A solution!
Sherrod Brown fought back today against any further compromising of the public option:
"A large number of people in this country including many, many doctors wanted Medicare for all," he said. "That didn’t happen. Then we wanted a strong public option tied to Medicare rates. Then we wanted a public option building the Medicare network. That didn’t happen. Now we are saying public option coming out of the HELP Committee. And now we’re saying public option with the state opt-out. Where was the compromise coming from their side?"
That's what I want to know. But how can anyone compromise or reason with the conservadems when they're not even operating within known reality? Lieberman thinks the bill will run up the deficit when it, in fact, it reduces the deficit. Carper today said that the public option would be "government financed" when, in fact, it's financed through premiums. When they're not willing to embrace reality -- and these are Democrats, mind you -- how can we possibly allow further compromises with them? Reconciliation, if done correctly, looks really good right now.