I say we cut a deal with Olympia Snowe. Here is the way I see it...

[Thickasabrick]

The public option and medicare buy in's are gone....end of story. The ugly abortion language is in plus Nelson gets more Medicaid than anyone just for voting yes.

I think Olympia would vote yes, we could get rid of the abortion language and Maine would get the extra medicaid money in exchange for her vote. Her only objections were the Public Option and/or Medicare buy ins. Nelson could go fuck himself.

Thoughts?

[BzaDem]

1. She has more objections than the Public Option and Medicare buy in.

She is against any kind of Medicare payroll tax increase. The Medicare payroll tax increase (for those making above $250k/year) was put in there to lessen the impact of the excise tax on unions and to increase affordability. Negotiating with Snowe would mean a higher health plan excise tax AND fewer subsidies for the poor and middle class. Snowe wants the funding to be much more regressive (with less affordability).

And on top of that, without the abortion language, the bill would almost certainly fail to pass the House.

[secondwind]

2. leave this as it is.................please!

[tblue]

3. I guess.

I have no idea what to do to get something passed with 60 votes. But I think she will vote no in the end like a good Republican without an independant thought or a spine.

[boston bean]

6. hmmmm, who's that remind you of?? nt

[babylonsister]

4. I heard Snowe this a.m. She's all for dragging this out for months more,

which is her justification for not voting for the bill supposedly. I think it's been dragged out for far too long so I hope the Dems don't even need her. I think it's a waste of time to coddle her further.

[Joe Bacon]

5. Dream on...

She's already gotten thousands of concessions she wanted and she STILL won't vote for it.

Kill this bill and go through reconciliation.

[pnwmom]

9. Reconciliation won't get the job done. It's only useful for matters

directly budget related.

[lunatica]

7. Oh for crying out loud! Will you stop rushing her?!

Everything is going just way too fast for her!

[Loudmxr]

8. Maybe if we promised her a pony.

BTW locally "duck" has been my rhetorical touchstone recently. I worked with both Donald and Daffy Duck so the rumors of me "with a duck" are true. "If it walks like a duck quacks like a duck .. it must be politics." etc.

[spanone]

10. ....not ONE republicon will vote for it.....bets?

[Joe Bacon]

11. Democrats are doing the Republicans work for them

Best of both worlds for Republicans! They get the bill they want and they manipulated the Democrats to pass it. Then they win control of Congress in 2010 by promising to repeal the bill, and they don't!

[TorchTheWitch]

12. They didn't manipulate the Dems

As I've said time and again this is alllllll about MONEY. Repubs don't want this ONLY because it will not be THEM that gets the huge corporate dollars from insurance companies. Ideologically wise, they LOVE this bill. Dems did this THEMSELVES with Obama at the helm sending out Rahm and his other minions to twist the arms of any Dem against it even though NO Dem should be for it since it is ideologically completely backward for Dems. This is ideologically a Repub bill being slammed through by Dems in the admin, in the Senate and in the House ONLY for the corporate money.

Even the very first Dem bills with the government public option did NOTHING to bring down insurance costs, reign in insurance companies or provide the least bit of any competition with insurance companies since as Obama said himself only about 5% of people would go for the public option, not because they didn't WANT the public option but because anyone who had insurance through their job wasn't ALLOWED to use the public option - the public option was ONLY offered to those people with no insurance and who did not get insurance through their job. Dems STARTED with a plan DESIGNED to NOT do a fucking THING to lower outrageous medical insurance premiums/co-pays/deductibles or offer ANY meaningful competition for insurance companies or put any meaningful regulations on insurance companies, AND they offered BILLIONS of dollars of our tax money as a GIFT to those same insurance companies. THIS is where the Dems - and the Dems ALONE - STARTED from.

People desperately need to WAKE UP and realize the DEMS did this all by themselves completely against not only Dem ideology but against our COUNTRY's ideology since this is a FACSIST bill, and they did it for the MONEY. Any Dems against it had their arms twisted and they alone made the decision to go along for the sake of their own careers. Harry Reid even PUBLICALLY threatened that any Dem who didn't go along would be stripped of their chairmanships and effectively shut out.

[Joe Bacon]

13. This just in--Snowe will vote NO

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/shes-a-no-snowe-confirms-opposition-to-health-care-bill.php?ref=fpblg