Healthcare reform turned into health insurance reform as liberals acquired a new enemy

[grassfed]

It was always a tight vote. Keeping 60 Senators in line to avoid a filibuster, with some very conservative Democrats needed to keep the coalition viable, meant that anyone wondering off the reservation of consensus could ruin the fragile alignment for passing healthcare reform. Now the Senate bill is without a public option and its replacement–allowing citizens to buy into Medicare at age 55-64 has also been tossed into the trash can. In the process, the deal breaker, Senator Joe Lieberman, has become the pariah of the failed legislation because, after months of supporting the idea of age 55 buy-in for Medicare, he turned against it just over the last weekend and killed the compromised healthcare bill in the Senate, at least that version of it. We still have the delicate issue of abortion coverage and the restrictive language that Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska wants to put into the bill, despite the fact that abortion is a legal, sanctioned medical procedure in this country.

It is hard to know the motives of Lieberman’s sudden departure from what appeared to be a 60 vote majority for the revised bill that included the age 55 buy-in for Medicare. It is especially hard to understand Lieberman’s decision on that aspect of the bill. He comes from a state that has a large health insurance industry and he has received significant campaign contributions and support from the healthcare companies of Connecticut. Furthermore, his sudden concerns about the age 55 Medicare buy-in don’t make sense because this is the very group that for-profit health insurance companies try to eliminate from their roles because they are the group most in need of medical attention–they’re expensive. So getting that age group onto the government’s roles would seem to be a desirable outcome for health insurance companies. Why then would Lieberman be opposed to it?
more http://themillercircle.org/2009/12/healthcare-reform-turned-into-health-insurance-reform-as-liberals-acquired-a-new-enemy/

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also see Miller's bio:
With the election of Barack Obama in the fall of 2008, perhaps we finally have the leadership that can help restore our national purpose to one of solving major problems rather than being focused on the acquisition of wealth and protecting our interests solely through a military posture. But, due in large part to the failures of the Bush administration and the mythical “free-market” economic system that has collapsed all around us, the problems our new president faces seem overwhelming and hopelessly complex. The American public sat by and watched three decades of Republican leadership produce what Noam Chomsky has described as “a failed state.” America’s most famous journalist, I.F. Stone characterized the Reagan administration when he first grasped its intentions as a movement based on “class greed.” And, since Reagan, things have only gotten worse.
see http://themillercircle.org/about/