With the public option and the Medicare buy-in both out the window, the Senate health care bill is so weakened and watered-down that it would be better to try to kill it than fight for its passage. Go instead to reconciliation and start the process all over again two years hence. And do whatever’s necessary to prevent the obstinate and obstructionist Sen. Joe Lieberman from being re-elected.
“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” former presidential candidate Howard Dean said in a radio interview yesterday. “Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”
