This time with bipartisan support Olympia Snowe!

Senior White House officials, in conversations with reporters today, are floating the idea that President Obama is secretly negotiating with Sen. Olympia Snowe over a health care compromise that would phase in a government-funded health care alternative if private insurance companies fail to meet quality and cost benchmarks over a certain period of the time. The public discussion of the Snowe “compromise” is meant to test the reaction of House Democrats, who will pass a bill that includes an immediate public option added to a new health insurance exchange. The White House hopes that, having voted for a public option, House Dems would accept a “trigger” as part of a conference committee compromise rather than putting the kibosh on the entire health care reform project. In some ways, this strategy is old, and in some ways it’s new. For months, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has been pushing the idea of a “trigger” internally, and he and Snowe regularly trade legislative and political intelligence.

Personally I think  this is another trial balloon, much like the idea of removing the public option altogether was. And, like that trial balloon, this is going to go over like a duck with a brick in its ass. It’s not going to appease anyone, in fact it’s only going to tick off the liberal Left and the conservative Right.

To paraphrase Heidi Klum and Glenn Beck, it’s either in or it’s out. Half-stepping ain’t gonna get the job done.

After five long months, Obama has finally decided to join the process of crafting the bill. Gee, it’s only his signature domestic policy and all.

President Barack Obama, increasingly impatient with Senate negotiations over health care, is weighing a plan to offer more details of his goals for overhauling the nation’s health system, the White House said Tuesday.

The president is considering a speech in the next week or so in which he would be “more prescriptive” about what he feels Congress must include in a bill, top adviser David Axelrod said in an interview. The speech might occur before the Sept. 15 deadline that was given to Senate negotiators to seek a bipartisan bill, said Axelrod, who suggested that two key Republicans have not bargained in good faith.

How nice of Obama to take the time to join the conversation on helathcare.

I would feel bad for Dems if they hadn’t lived by that sword in 2006 and 2008. As it stands now, they’re poised to die by it.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.

That represents the lowest level of support for Democrats in recent years, while Republicans have tied their highest level of support for the third straight week. The previous low for Democrats over the past year was 37%…

Throughout the summer of 2008, support for Democratic congressional candidates ranged from 45% to 48%. Republican support ranged from 34% to 37%…

If Americans could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 57% would throw out all the legislators and start over again. Just 25% would vote to keep the Congress.

New GOP slogan; Vote Republican – We’re Not Democrats! Seeing as that strategy worked  so well for Dems in the past two election cycles and all.

We call this striking while the iron is hot.

Don’t ask how the GOP plans to square the Medicare circle, but this idea is a good start.

I would say the original argument was confined to one dumbass but sadly, it’s not.

The best part is the comments on YouTube. Yes folks, even after explaining in in very clear, easy  to understand terms some still don’t get where the strawman argument fails. Classic.

And in case you missed it from yesterday, here’s the Cato Institute’s look at RomneyCare that further illustrates the points made in the video.

Um, wow.

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating is down to 42%, with a decline in approval from Democrats the leading factor.

The latest Zogby Interactive poll of 4,518 likely voters conducted from August 28-31 found 48% disapprove and 42% approve of the job Obama is doing. The poll found 75% of Democrats approve of Obama’s performance, a drop of 13 points among Democrats from an interactive poll done July 21-24 of this year. That same poll found 48% of all likely voters approving of Obama’s job performance, and 49% disapproving.

Even Rasmussen has Obama a good five points higher. Who the hell is Zogby polling nowadays? And where is he finding all these disgruntled Dems?

John has thoughts on Obama’s predicament;

Pollster John Zogby: President Obama is now firmly between a rock and a hard place. Democrats want a strong healthcare reform bill with a public option. Republicans and more conservative Democrats do not agree. If Obama fails to get a bill that his base supporters want, the entire Democratic Party risks alienating them; especially 18-29-year-old First Globals^TM, who could very quickly become disenchanted with politics. Obama needs to enter the fray in a very public way, which may mean knocking heads with both wings of his own party.

Yes, but if he does pander to his base (I’m assuming Zogby means the far left here) he and the Dems risk alienating everyone who isn’t far left. Doing that isn’t going to win Dems any elections anytime soon.

Check out the new plan for ObamaCare;

The comeback for Democrats — if there is one — will begin in an all-important closed-door caucus meeting next week in the basement of the Capitol, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top lieutenants will try to undo the damage of the August recess and convince their wobbly members that a vote for health care reform will not cost them their jobs in 2010.

Leaders say their strategy is to convince members that nothing is set in stone and that they are more than open to negotiations. And they’re engaging in a softer sell, prioritizing health insurance reforms while pitching the public option as something that’s way, way down the road.

“We’re going to ask, ‘Where are you now? Is there something we need to add to get [you] to vote for this?’” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is charged with ensuring that the party’s most vulnerable members are reelected in 2010…

Clyburn, for his part, is advocating a “two step” approach in which the most widely supported health insurance reforms, like coverage for pre-existing conditions, go into effect immediately, while the public option is framed as a distant step — something that would go into effect in 2013, only after benchmarks and pilot programs are studied.

Clyburn has proposed setting up modest pilot programs for the public option in certain regions or states — an experimental way of seeing whether these health exchanges can actually work at the local level before they go nationwide.

This plan is so dumb on so many levels it’s a wonder anyone is considering it at all. Nobody is going to go for that, not Pelosi and the wacky Left nor the Blue Dogs and the center left. But they sure are willing to try anything at this point aren’t they?

I couldn’t not post this….it’s too damn funny to ignore.

Race baiting, fear mongering, Republican smearing, Castro worship…where do you start?

I damn near fell out of my seat when I saw this live (yes I actually had to watch the damn thing live) but I quickly reminded myself that nothing, not even a funeral intercession, is sacred to Dems.

And they got a kid to do it, natch. Nothing like a using a human shield child to push your agenda at a funeral.

The Cato Institute takes a look at RomneyCare (the faternal twin of ObamaCare) to see how things like individual mandates, coverage mandates, cost controls, and publicly-funded healthcare are working out for the people of Massachusetts. Needless to say, it ain’t pretty.

The most sweeping provision in the Massachusetts reforms — and the legislation before Congress — is an “individual mandate” that makes health insurance compulsory. Massachusetts shows that such a mandate would oust millions from their low-cost health plans and force them to pay higher premiums.

The necessity of specifying what satisfies the mandate gives politicians enormous power to dictate the content of every American’s health plan — a power that health care providers inevitably capture and use to increase the required level of insurance.

In the three years since Massachusetts enacted its individual mandate, providers successfully lobbied to require 16 specific types of coverage under the mandate: prescription drugs, preventive care, diabetes self-management, drug-abuse treatment, early intervention for autism, hospice care, hormone replacement therapy, non-in-vitro fertility services, orthotics, prosthetics, telemedicine, testicular cancer, lay midwives, nurses, nurse practitioners and pediatric specialists.

The Massachusetts Legislature is considering more than 70 additional requirements.

Those requirements can increase premiums by 14 percent or more. Officials further increased premiums by imposing new limits on cost-sharing.

…

Massachusetts long ago adopted another feature of the Obama plan: price controls that prohibit insurers from varying premiums based on a purchaser’s health status. Those price controls further increase premiums for the young and healthy.

They also eliminate comprehensive health plans. Obama adviser David Cutler found that in Harvard University’s price-controlled health insurance exchange, “adverse selection” or the attraction of the sickest patients caused premiums for the most comprehensive plan to rise until insurers eventually canceled it. Those price controls also encourage insurers to avoid the sick. And who can blame them, considering that the government is forcing them to sell a $50,000 policy for just $10,000?

One way insurers can avoid the $50,000 patients is to drop benefits those customers find attractive. Shelby Rogers is a 12-year-old girl with spinal muscular atrophy, whose parents chose an Aetna plan through the price-controlled health insurance exchange for federal workers. Last year, Aetna announced it would drop coverage for Shelby’s 12-hour-a-day nurse, who, among other things, helps Shelby avoid bedsores by turning her over at night. An Aetna spokesman explained the reason was to avoid offering a benefit that causes the sickest patients to flock to the plan.

…

As goes choice, so goes quality. Statistics on waiting times for specialist care in Massachusetts read like a dispatch from Canada. In 2004, Boston already had the longest waits among metropolitan areas. By 2009, waits had generally shortened in other metro areas (average wait: less than three weeks) but lengthened in Boston (average wait: seven weeks), according to the Merritt Hawkins survey.

…

Massachusetts has reduced the share of its population that lacks coverage from an estimated 8.3 percent in 2006 to an estimated 2.6 percent by June 2008. Former Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican who signed the Massachusetts reforms into law, boasts that “no other state has made as much progress in covering their uninsured.”

Yet that achievement carries an exorbitant price tag: at least $2.1 billion this year, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a figure that doesn’t even include the cost of the additional coverage discussed above. Since Massachusetts has covered just 432,000 previously uninsured residents, the cost of covering a previously uninsured family of four — at least $20,000 — is well above the average cost of an employer-sponsored family policy (about $13,000).

…

To cope with the cost of its reforms, Massachusetts created a legislative commission that has recommended moving the entire market to a single, Canadian-style payment system that would encourage doctors and hospitals to ration care.

The Legislature also plans to leverage its power under the individual mandate to require “evidence-based purchasing strategies,” which is another way of saying government bureaucrats may soon be deciding who gets medical care and who does not.

But aside from all that, government run healthcare has worked out fantastically for Massachusetts. I’m sure ObamaCare will work just as well.

…things seem to still be wee-wee’d up for Obama and ObamaCare.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove. That’s the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President and it gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10 …

Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. That matches the lowest total approval yet measured for Obama. Fifty-two percent (52%) now disapprove.

Support for the health care reform package proposed by the President and Congressional Democrats has stopped falling, but most voters are still opposed.

Approval for ObamaCare is stuck at 53%-43%, which after a month of pitching the hell out of the idea isn’t a good sign. Even worse, nobody much cares for the people who designed ObamaCare.

If Americans could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 57% would throw out all the legislators and start over again. Just 25% would vote to keep the Congress.

Well, we can make that partially happen next year….

Heh.

Dick Cheney does not mince words.

Ah, it never ends.

Until now, the controversy over the Rather/Mapes story has centered almost entirely on one issue:  the legitimacy of the documents – a very important issue, indeed.  But it turns out that there was another very important issue, one that goes to the very heart of what the story was about – and one that has gone virtually unnoticed.   This is it:  Mary Mapes knew before she put the story on the air that George W. Bush, the alleged slacker, had in fact volunteered to go to Vietnam.

Who says?  The outside panel CBS brought into to get to the bottom of the so-called “Rathergate” mess says. I recently re-examined the panel’s report after a source, Deep Throat style, told me to “Go to page 130.”  When I did, here’s the startling piece of information I found:

Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots.  For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush “did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.”  Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify.

This information, despite the fact that it has been available since the CBS report came out four years ago, has remained a secret to almost everybody both in and out of the media — one lonely fact in a 234- page report loaded with thousands of facts, and overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the documents.

I made an online check and discovered that while a few websites noted the CBS finding, the story got no ink (that I could find) on the news pages of any big mainstream paper.  I did manage to find two opinion pieces about the CBS mess – one in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the other in the Miami Herald — that briefly, and only in passing, mentioned the “Bush volunteered” angle. But that was it!  A check of network newscasts turned up nothing. And when I questioned two journalists with intimate knowledge of the story, both said Mapes never shared her information with them.

Yeah, I know, you’re all shocked that CBS would completely fabricate a story to attempt to destroy Bush’s character. What I’m interested in is Bernie’s source; as mentioned earlier in Goldberg’s article Rather is currently suing CBS for $70 mil in a breach of contract suit. Having this info made public not only gives him more of a leg to stand on legally, it also helps to restore some of the credibility he lost. It it was one of Rather’s people who spilled the beans to Goldberg, good work.

I would like to thank the esteemed Dr. Howard Dean for standing up and admitting the truth as to why there is not tort reform in ObamaCare.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a medical doctor who served as governor of Vermont, said at a town hall meeting on Tuesday night that Democrats in Congress did not include tort reform in the health care bill because they were fearful of “taking on” the trial lawyers.

“This is the answer from a doctor and a politician,” said Dean. “Here is why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that the more stuff you put in, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that’s the truth.”

The campaign contributions don’t hurt either, but I’m sure inept cowardice is the main cause. Thank you Dr. Dean.

Please tell me Ed Klein is kidding here.

I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, “have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?” That is just the most amazing thing. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.

It’s amazing alright….