mcjoan: "Reid Caves: Medicare Buy-in, Public Option Pulled from Senate Bill"

mcjoan (Kos):

With Tom Harkin pre-capitulating, telling TMPDC that "There's enough good in this bill that even without those two, we gotta move," even before the Dem caucus met to decide the way forward, the writing was on the wall. Add Rockefeller, who says he'll vote for the bill even without Medicare buy-in, and it's gone.

A number of sources are reporting that the majority capitulated to Lieberman, who was in attendance in the meeting, cuz, you know, he's with us on everything but the war.

Senators emerging from the special Democratic caucus confirm that the Medicare buy-in proposal will have to be stripped from the Senate bill in order to achieve 60 votes.

So what's out next at Lieberman's demand? The 90% medical loss ratio is destined to be a goner, now that the CBO has concluded that requiring insurance companies to pay 90% of money collected through premiums out in direct medical care would--and this I don't get at all--"make such insurance an essentially governmental program," that's gonna be out.

What's Lieberman's next demand going to be? My guess is Medicaid subsidies have to be removed.

And don't forget that we still have Ben Nelson's abortion demands.

Yes, Virginia, this bill can look even worse by the end of the week. And probably will.

Howie P.S.: Progressives in the House are pushing back: "House Progressive Caucus Pressure White House." mcjoan concludes with

They've bent pretty far thus far, and the pressure on them to pass something, anything, will be extreme. But there could very well be a breaking point for them, and it's likely to be what Joe Lieberman would strip from the bill, and what Ben Nelson would add to it. That's part of the equation that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi have to keep in mind.