I wish SOMEBODY on the talking-heads shows would call Lieberman out on his lies. He's lying about the bill AND he's lying about why he's opposed to it. Maddow or Olbermann would certainly nail him, but he's too cowardly to face either of them.

The Whitehouse had vowed to call out this kind of bullshit. I'd like to see someone in the party call him and ask him this. Then, if he doesn't respond, tell us that as well. It would at least force him to STFU or face questions about Senator "whoevers" statement that he never got back to them with proof. At the very least it would embarrass this little asswip!

Sorry that's asswipe! By the way this is off topic but, Senator Coburn has placed a hold on Veterans benefits because instead of passing the bill he wants the unused portion of the stimulus to be used instead. it would be great if Rachel Maddow brought this to light the way she did when somone placed a hold on Tammy Duckworth who is the female veteran with one leg. The very next day after Rachel brought this to lite, the hold was removed.

He'd say the public option was funded by the killing of kittens for their fur if he thought it would get the red carpet rolled out for him over at MTP.

He's going to mouth off with lie after lie until this thing hits the Senate floor. Whether we're talking about his crystal ball of lies, or questioning when the Democrats will strip him of his chairmanship (something he has only because of the graciousness of the president), or speculating on which motion he'll vote against, we're still talking about him and that puffs him up more than anything.

If only we could get him across the table from Rachel... oh my wouldn't that be glorious...

I'm glad you mentioned that!

And still one more reason Lieberman is simply unfit to hold any sway on any issue:

Before the Army has even concluded it's initial investigation, Joe McBlow is ready to convene a Congressional hearing to examine ISLAMIC EXTREMISM in the military!

He's just fucking terrible! PERIOD

LIEberman pulled the knowledge out of his ass.

so if the PO saves the budget $100 Billion paying Medicare rates, how much would Single Payer save paying every bill at medicare rates?

Some hospitals get it. They'd rather be paid for EVERY procedure at a slightly reduced rate than for only 70 % of all procedures at the insurance negotiated rate.

This should be a budgetary slam dunk, Bob. Single payer would crush both what we have now, and a Public option in terms of saving money, and would cover EVERY American, instead of 96%.

It's simple on the surface, and with in depth analysis, would show that Single Payer, by far, is the cheapest route to health care. That would sell, big time, in this great recession. But we never even tried. We never even tried to do an analysis on it. That is what has me so pissed about this.

@PPP: I see where you're coming from, I really do. But considering how the media and politicians, and therefore the public, just refuses to believe that even this much-watered down version of the public option saves more money than any of the HCR bills without it, I'm just not as optimistic as you are that single-payer would have fared any better. Truth seems to be a casualty of American life.

PPP, I'm not real sure who you're arguing with. We all want the Single Payer system. No one here doesn't want that I'm fairly sure. The problem is it is impossible to accomplish right now. I know, you have perfectly good reasons why that's not true. I've seen your posts saying that if this condition was met and if that person would just decide to do this one thing then all these other dominoes would line up and voila, we'd have Single Payer. It wouldn't happen right now. Are you kidding, look at the turmoil about death panels and government takeovers that came from something as benign as a PO.

Instead of arguing with us about why we should have the SP, which we already agree on and which isn't going to happen for a while--too long, I'm with you. It should be now. A lot of things SHOULD be this way or that, but they're not. Spend your energy working the phones, working with MoveOn or work to get a primary challenger to replace one of the Blue Dogs. Do something realistic.

@PPP You're preaching to choir my friend

PPP - Dont be dense. Of course Single-Payer would be better. No one has ever said Single-Payer is not as good as a Public Insurance Option. But is it realistic in this environment? No. 17.5% "real" unemployment is not a good time to put a hundreds of thousands of insurance workers out of work either, even if their CEOs are corrupt.

However, if the PO passes it can be ammended over time and eventually end up being Single-Payer by another name.