Health Wars (10/26/09)

The summation of Karl's BarryCare weekend recap:

*Crazy Nancy is playing CBO shell games with House BarryCare without even the shells that Dirty Harry failed with to hide it under.

*The One went to the Dem healthcare laboratory - Massachusetts - and never talked up healthcare while trying to raise cash for Deval Patrick and staring down the barrel of his own political future.

*Even in the House, the Donk Politburo may not have the votes.

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So popular is the public option (yes, it's baaaaaaaack, because incrementalism in the Democrat Party officially died when it bums-rushed Joe Lieberman three years ago), as Shrieker Fossilized Funbags keeps insisting, that now she wants to....re-brand it:

In an appearance at a Florida senior center, the Democratic leader referred to the so-called public option as “the consumer option.” Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL, appeared by Pelosi’s side and used the term “competitive option.”

Both suggested new terminology might get them past any lingering doubts among the public – or consumers or competitors.

“You’ll hear everyone say, ‘There’s got to be a better name for this,’” Pelosi said. “When people think of the public option, public is being misrepresented, that this is being paid for with their public dollars.”…

“I think she’s going to go up and test-drive it when she goes back to Washington,” Wasserman Schultz said. “It might stick.”

In the round file, perhaps.  This lamebrainery is more brain-dead than Reid thinking he could sneak the extra quarter-trillion in Medicare spending restoration past CBO in Debbie Stabenow's bloomers.  Maybe if Granny had orwellianized this mother of all poison pills from the start, it might have gained some obfuscatory traction for a while (i.e. long enough for the July cram-down that never was).  Now it smells like the latest whiff of the titanic billowing cloud of....desperation.

By the way, if this giga-boondoggle isn't being paid for with taxpayer funding, what does she care where CBO scores it?  What would they even HAVE to score?  How would it be paid for?  Monopoly money?

That actually might be ironically apt, come to think of it.  God knows our money isn't going to be worth that much before too much longer.

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They say that desperation makes strange bedfellows.

They're right:

Businesses would not be required to provide health insurance under legislation being readied for Senate debate, but large firms would owe significant penalties if any worker needed government subsidies to buy coverage on their own, according to Democratic officials familiar with talks on the bill.

For firms with more than fifty employees, the fee could be as high as $750 multiplied by the total size of the work force if only a few workers needed federal aid, these officials said. That is a more stringent penalty than in a bill that recently cleared the Senate Finance Committee, which said companies should face penalties on a per-employee basis.

These officials also said individuals would generally be required to purchase affordable insurance if it were available, and face penalties if they defied the requirement.

Here'e the logic: An employer mandate might be ruled unconstitutional, but an individual mandate DEFINITELY would be.  However, businesses can more easily afford high-powered legal assistance than can individuals, and even with the higher penalty, it will still be cheaper for employers to dispense with medical/dental/vision coverage altogether, leaving employees no choice but to be herded into the cattlecars of....the "consumer option."  Which - presto chango! - Dirty Harry announced today would be included in Senate BarryCare.

So yes, you read that correctly, the self-same eeeeeevil Big Business against which the Holy Order Of Light-Bringing has been railing demonaically for the past year is now to be (for now) cut a break in the hopes that they'll prove to be every bit the mercenary scumbags Dems have snarlingly stereotyped for decades.  After which, naturally, Dems will stentorianly condemn them for greedily casting millions of Americans to the four healthcare winds and tout how they "rescued" us with BarryCare and Republicans, in unanimously opposing it, tried to (drumroll) "take away your healthcare".

If, that is, Pencil-Neck (1) can somehow alchemize sixty cloture votes, (2) somehow keep Olympia Snowe from bailing, (3) and water down the "competitive option" enough to lure in enough Blue Dogs without pissing off the hard-leftists (again).

Given that Reid may well be the dimmer bulb of the Capitol Hill Odd Couple, I don't envy him his task.  But I sure am digging watching it.