Time for this dumb asshole whore caricature of a Senator to implode.

He's simply the dumbest son of a bitch in the Senate Democratic Causus. The only economics he knows, understands or believes is what he read off of his "I Heart Reagan" souvenir coffee mug. He believes with all his heart it isn't possible for private companies to compete with the gubbamint and he thinks that would be a terrible, terrible thing. He's clearly planning on voting even against cloture if there is anything in it that's close enough cousin to a public option to get married in any state except West Virginia.

So, does anybody have any specific, practical suggestions for how Obama is supposed to to steer this ship around this never to be sufficiently damned dumbass?

No vague verbs or phrases like "fight," or "demand," or "turn up the heat," or "turn the screws." What is it, specifically, that Obama or for that matter, the always reviled Harry Reid, supposed to do to to get around him? They can't take away his committees. They don't have the power. They can't threaten to cut him off from campaign funds because he's already in big bidnesses' pocket. They can't threaten him with a primary challenger because his constituients are dep red shitkickers who think he's a tetch too librul already. They can't threaten to release the dirt in Hoover's files because, well, Hoover died before this guy even thought of running for office.

Reconciliation? Yeah, I guess so, but has anyone been paying attention to the stories about the baggage that will pile onto the bill? And does anyone think this guy will vote for the non-reconciliation part of the law if he knows the part he hates is being rammed through reconciliation?

If the public option gets flushed, it's because of this guy, Landrieu and Lieberman.

Senator Nelson (both of them) are idiots. But the thing to understand is that we are basically a 3-party country now: Democrats, Blue Dogs (who currently occupy the space on the political spectrum formerly occupied by Republicans), and Republicans (who currently occupy, as Bill Maher put it, a mental hospital).

Nelson is a piece of shit! I'd love nothing more than to see Sens. Lincoln, Nelson and Reid go down in defeat in next year mid term elections.

The better alternative: no bill comes out in any form, and the democratic 2010 primaries across the country become a referendum on healthcare. Let the candidates defend their positions to the voters and let the best position win.

Nelson isn't a piece of sh$$. He is only retelling the story about health care in the Senate. He wasn't even necessarily advocating against the public option. Calm down -- everyone. Take a deep breath. We've waited 15 years to get to this point. If the public option is off the table, here is an alternative:

1.) Pass a large bill that prohibits the following common insurance-firm behaviors:
a.) Denial of a claim based on a pre-existing condition
b.) Denial of policy application based on a pre-existing condition;
c.) Rejection of a claim in conjunction with premium refund (i.e. you pay insurance premiums for a dozen years and then get cancer; they refund your policy premiums and refuse your chemo cost);
d.) Prohibiting sale of high-deductible, low-coverage policies to those who have history of certain types of illnesses (such as leukemia and other forms of cancer; blood disorders; diabetes; etc.).
e.) Pick virtually any other predatory practice and ban it, too. This is the time, as what we're going to give up -- public plan and single-payer -- is far worse for the insurers so they'll tolerate us if we're able to highlight their predatory practices and ban them.

2.) The bill should cap the amount an individual policy-holder's family can ever be responsible for out-of-pocket at $10,000/illness. Likewise, the bill should cap the amount an individual tax payer's immediate family can be responsible for at $10,000/illness. Many of the bankruptcies that occur in the U.S. are because of large out-of-pocket costs, where an insurer only pays a fraction of the cost of treatment. The balance of the health care cost would have to be negotiated by the provider and the insurer.
3.) The bill should contain a trigger option, creating a publicly-created insurer for certain regions where premiums cost a certain percentage of per-capita income.

I don't call this "splitting the baby." It's recognizing the Senate and the government that we have. The Senate is not the House. Members tend to be more moderate because they represent entire states, not just Congressional districts. The body itself is more moderate because NY and CA have the same power as ND and SD. So, Nelson is probably speaking the truth. The body isn't ready to create a public option. Is Obama to blame? I don't know that he is -- and I don't really care. I care much more about creating a public option -- and if that fails, making sure we get excellent regulation of the existing health insurance market.