From Politico: The latest is that the White House is asking Harry Reid to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman to get to 60 votes–they are willing to drop the expansion of Medicare. But Reid isn’t ready to deal yet—he wants the latest CBO score before he will give an inch. An unidentified Democrat says:
“There is a weariness and a lot of frustration that one person is holding up the will of 59 others,” the official said. “There is still too much anger and confusion at one particular senator’s reversal.”
The polls indicate that the American people are more likely to regard Lieberman as a wall against something we don’t want. One of the many reasons that the public is against the bill is a growing sense that it is built on misinformation. From National Review, here are two examples of misinformation that bother the public:
Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), for example, said during floor debate that the uninsured impose a “hidden tax” of more than $1,000 per person. That claim, as regular readers of NRO already know, originated with a left-wing advocacy group. A Kaiser Family Foundation study debunked the group’s analysis, reaching an estimate closer to $200 per year for a family. The Congressional Budget Office has joined in the debunking.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) said that half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. A 2006 study found that only 9 percent of bankruptcies were primarily the result of medical bills. The study where Durbin’s claim originated used very loose criteria to classify bankruptcies as medical in nature; even in that study, only 29 percent of those surveyed blamed health expenses for their bankruptcies. (See here for more.)