Lieberman Rules Out Voting for Health Bill

[spanone]

WASHINGTON — In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form.

The bill’s supporters had said earlier that they thought they had secured Mr. Lieberman’s agreement to go along with a compromise they worked out to overcome an impasse within the party.

But on Sunday, Mr. Lieberman told the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to scrap the idea of expanding Medicare and to abandon the idea of any new government insurance plan, or lose his vote.

On a separate issue, Mr. Reid tried over the weekend to concoct a compromise on abortion that would induce Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, to vote for the bill. Mr. Nelson opposes abortion. Any provision that satisfies him risks alienating supporters of abortion rights.

In interviews on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Nelson said the bill did not have the 60 votes it would need to get through the Senate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/health/policy/14health.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

[NYC_SKP]

1. Fuck You, Joe Liebermann. I swear to God that man is beyond belief. n/t

[spanone]

3. what's the point of 100 senators if one fuck can blackmail an entire party..'in it's current form'

[NYC_SKP]

13. I'm thinking at least 25 senators would love to kick his ass.

Including some republicans.

[varelse]

2. I cannot believe this is described as a "surprise" setback

This is a joke. What exactly do we need 60 votes for, rather than a simple majority? I forget.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Can we PUH-LEEZE rule out LIEberman?????

[spanone]

5. make the fuckers filibuster for the entire next year.....call their bluff...put it on teevee

make them read the phone book while americans are suffering

[HughMoran]

MAKE THEM FILIBUSTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Damn it!!! Make them be show the EVIL that these MOTHERFUCKERS ARE!!

[HughMoran]

6. This is over the top treachery - time to pull out all stops

This cannot be held up by a couple of motherfucking backstabbing Republicrats. Fuck 60, we have enough to pass it. Force them to prevent a vote.

FORCE THEM TO FILIBUSTER!!

[spanone]

8. make them, nuclear option. up or down vote....RECONCILIATION

[Davis_X_Machina]

11. Much of the present bill...

...would have difficulty falling under the Byrd rules for reconciliation, or at least the rules before their systematic abuse by the Republican majority prior to 2006. They kept firing parliamentarians until they found one that gave them the answers they wanted.

[clear eye]

12. Is that b/c the Senate bill was devised to appease Lieberman & the 3 conservadems?

Is that the reason it is so different from the House bill?

I am still baffled as to why the Dems don't just go for the 51+ passage and demand that any threat of filibuster by followed through on. Think of the points against the Repukes caused by the theater of them talking for days to stall reform.

[Davis_X_Machina]

16. No, because the sections of the bill...

...are non-budgetary, and the reconciliation process was created to make sure that the budget doesn't get held hostage by various procedural tricks.

Byrd Rule here.

Note:

The Byrd rule is enforced when a Senator raises a point of order during consideration of a reconciliation bill or conference report. If the point of order is sustained, the offending title, provision or amendment is deemed stricken unless its proponent can muster a 3/5 (60) Senate majority vote to waive the rule.

Another 60-vote chokepoint.

Edited to fix first link.

[clear eye]

20. Thanks. I wish that were taught in HS civics.

I remember learning that bills are passed separately in each house then reconciled, but no one taught us that reconciliation only applied to spending bills.

Am I understanding right that spending bills that qualify for reconciliation are protected from filibuster?

(I feel dumb asking these questions, but I'm hoping other DUers will find the answers enlightening as well. Otherwise I'd ask by PM.)

[Davis_X_Machina]

21. Conference committees harmonize competing Senate and House versions....

...Reconciliation, while it sounds like it might do that, is a separate process dealing with budgetary actions that affect the federal deficit (or conceivably the surplus).

It's Wikipedia, but it's ripped off of the Congressional Research Service's PDF.

[clear eye]

22. Thanks again. I WAS conflating the two. n/t

[Bitwit1234]

7. Is there anybody here who believes that Liberman

would vote for a Health Bill in any form..unless it is a 100% positively give away to the insurance companies. I think if he doesn't vote for the bill his ass should be kicked off the chairmanship...AND CONTRARY TO ALL BELIEFS. To do so requires Harry Reid to say, Liberman you are being replaced. They do not have to take votes, no nothing, no anything but Reid kicking him out. I looked it up.

[spanone]

9. no and i don't know why anyone kisses his ass in congress...they should count him out all the way

[democracy1st]

10. dayum this admin and the dems for being so weak

[regnaD kciN]

15. Fuck you

It ain't the "admin," it's a handful of pretend-Democrats with the power to hold us hostage.

Don't blame Obama for Lieberman, Nelson, or Lincoln.

[democracy1st]

18. Goldman Sachs admin and pass that on to your mother and tell her i said the same thing you told me

[rwheeler31]

14. No one can trust this man.

[Me.]

17. Take His Chairmanship Away

Geez what's it gonna take

[charlie]

19. Surprise setback? For whom?

Anybody surprised by this needs to take the next bus back to Gullible Junction.