Thursday, January 21, 2010

Message to "start over" Dems: if you couldn't get the public option with 60 votes, you're not getting it with 59

Anthony Wiener this morning on CNN said that the Dems should "hit the reset button" on healthcare and go back to the drawing board because "Somewhere in all of the machinations here, in all of the insider deals" to get to 60 votes, they've "walked away from some of those popular things" in the bill, such as restoring "choice and competition with the public option."

Apparently Wiener has much higher hopes for the new, non-filibuster-proof Senate. I fail to understand how you take a Senate that had 60 votes and would not pass a public option, swap Ted Kennedy for a Republican and get a Senate interested in restoring the public option to the bill.

Wiener of course is not foolish enough to believe his own asinine ramblings. He wants to run for Mayor of NYC in four years, and he knows that NYC democratic primary voters want a public option. Consequently, for Anthony Wiener (who, as a congressman, currently has great health insurance) it's better to be seen as the guy fighting for a completely unrealistic "reset in order to get a public option" than to be a bit player in a compromise bill that a lot of lefties are unhappy with, but still covers 35 million currently uninsured Americans.

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