Health Care Compromise Has Fewer Supporters than More Progressive Bills

That's not really fair. The Blue Dogs liked it.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/59031-blue-dogs-praise-baucus-bill

Shocked, I tell you! Shocked!

Come on, the insurance companies must like it.They bribed him w/ $1.5 million in just the last couple years:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072003363.html

Of course the Blues Dogs like it. That's where the Insurance Companies have been focusing their lobbying efforts. They knew they had the Rescumlicans on board to vote against any healthcare reform.......what they really needed was to turn some Dems to their cause and voila!! The Blue Dog Caucus!

When you've lost Burris...

"How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/16/783113/-HOW-LONG

If this thing passed the Dems will lose the vote of everyone that can't afford to pay for insurance but are forced. That is just a few million or so. Most don't vote now but they will. There goes the majority. I'm just sick it could put the crazies back in power in no time. Good job Bluedogs!

"Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, it's still getting no love on the right. Even from moderate Republicans. Blue Dogs like it, though!"

Blue dogs have been the target of this shoddy exercise all along. Fact of the matter is there are enough corpordems, conservadems and blue dogs in the Senate so that an actual good bill really has little chance getting even the 50 votes needed for reconcilation, never mind 60 votes to avoid GOP filibustering.

As usual for progressives, the options seem dim and dimmer. We can get a shitty, insurance industry-friendly bill from the likes of Baucus, which, basically will only please those now being totally screwed by insurance companies -- those with preexisting conditions or those who have exhausted caps on coverage or been non-renewed because they were sick. That's not nothing, but because there will be no cost-controls on the insurers -- like a strong public option would provide -- they are just going to raise the rates on the rest of the big majority of people who already have insurance and they will be none too happy about it. The public is then quite likely to react by saying: See! Those Democrats are no better than Republicans in siding with the special interests (I'm hearing this already from people saying the Dems are doing nothing to rein in the banks -- and they are right). From there it's not too hard for the average non-ideological voter to vote GOP again. I find most people can't compute my argument that it's the conservative corporate Dems who stymie things, not the progressive majority of the party. They just blame Democrats in general.

The other option is the liberal majority of the party stands up to the conservadems and the bill goes down when the conservadems won't fold. The public once again blames Democrats in general and we have 1994 all over again.

My guess is the first option is the final result. I would lover to believe the second option would hold with the exception that the conservadems fold, and logically they should, since they are the most likely ones to lose in any GOP comeback. But I'm certainly not holding my breathe.

You look really surprised about the reception, Sen. Baucus, ya stupid jackass!

Democrats (almost) satisfy their basic constituency, the Chamber of Commerce.

The only thing that the Baucus Bill did was increase the campaign coffers of the Blue Dogs and let the Right Wing crazy's increase their prominence within the GOP. His bill is even more out of touch with the American Public that the yet to be submitted GOP Bill authored by Price of Georgia.