Now it is not only Independent Joe Lieberman who has made it clear he will not vote for the health care reform bill if the public option or Medicare extension remains in the bill.
Also, the much more admirable Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has said he probably will not vote for the legislation, if it does not INCLUDE the public option or Medicare extension, or even better, a single payer system.
Plus Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska has stated that if the bill does not disallow abortion coverage, then he will not vote for the bill.
It looks more and more as if this health care legislation is in deep trouble, and even an attempt to recruit the two Maine women senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, seems unlikely to work because they have their own special problems with the legislation.
If the legislation does not pass in a reasonable form to bring real reform, the American people will be the losers, and the health insurance industry will have a big victory.
And, unfortunately, it could be the end of the dream of a real reform period under President Barack Obama. A defeat now would be hard to recover from, and particularly so with the unrest within the party over the “surge” of troops in Afghanistan ordered by President Obama. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear she will not lobby her colleagues to back the Afghan appropriations bill and is tired of backing funding for wars she does not believe in.
The possibility of major Democratic losses next year, with the decision of four House veterans to retire, is alarming, and it is highly unlikely that the Obama Administration will have any better an opportunity than right now to promote real reform initiatives.
It sadly seems as if the old gridlock and stalemate so common in recent administrations is occurring again, a highly regrettable situation, to say the least! 🙁