It begins

Today is the final steps in the Senate's health care legislation are taking place. This afternoon there should be a CBO score. Tonight, Harry Reid will unveil the bill to the Democratic caucus, strutting it around the room, making sure it meets everyone who'll stab it in the back. So finally, America moves one step closer to having slightly improved health care options, coverage, reduced costs....what's that Majority Whip Dick Durbin?

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin isn't inflating anybody's expectations about Harry Reid's chances for passing a health care bill with a public option on the Senate floor. On MSNBC last night, Durbin said it would be a hard slog.

"We're working on it, struggling," he said

*sighs* Well, maybe in the end you'll finally get them to be able to come around...you have something to add Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE)?

"We're concerned that a number of centrists aren't prepared to vote for a national public plan, even with an opt-out," Carper said in response to a question from TPMDC. "We're trying to find something that addresses their concern about government run, government-funded, but still addresses the need for the affordability needs and the need for more competition in states that don't have it."

*sighs* How about showing them that the public option wouldn't be government funded, but by premiums people payed....like with insurance, and that the thing wouldn't be directly government run according to reports. Would that work? Would that get it through their thick skulls? See..

“I think we ought to begin a dialogue on this and see where it leads,” said Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, adding that this position was no guarantee he would support the measure in the end.

But...

When asked if Lincoln would vote to break a filibuster aimed at preventing the debate from starting, a Lincoln aide said she “has not committed her vote to anyone,”

Jesus Chr...

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.): Landrieu may have just won reelection, but she consistently positions herself in the middle of her caucus — and is now “very skeptical” about the Reid plan. She refused to say whether she would even vote to begin debate

Rotten fuck...

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.): Perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, Nelson said Tuesday that it’s “too soon” to say how he’ll vote

Alright, so we're not even committed to maybe discussing the possibility of voting for a bill that reduces costs and makes coverage more accessible. God, I hate Senate Democrats. So, in actuality it's not so much the beginning of the last stage in the battle to pass health care, it's the beginning of the last stage where "moderate Democrats" kill the bill and shoot themselves in the foot in one tandem shot. Why is there any reason to believe they won't screw this up completely?

Bill Kristol: "I think the health care bill, which is another sign of being out of touch, and trying to impose a massive ideological agenda on the American public, I think it will fail in the Senate in the next month."

America's Worst Pundit/the Wrongest Man in the World is convinced this will fail? Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, I feel optimism about health care in the Senate. Though really, this is going to test the limits of time and space. What happens when the Democrats well honed ability to screw up anything good comes into conflict with Kristol's preternatural ability to get everything wrong. Democrats can't screw this up and have Kristol be wrong. It's like the irresistible force vs. the immovable object. All I'm saying is that it may well end up destroying the world.