White House ordering Reid to cut deal with Lieberman? Senate Democrats summoned to White House

Is Harry Reid being ordered to do whatever it takes to get Lieberman on board?

Politico is reporting that the White House is ordering Reid to cut a deal with Liberman, which could include removing the Medicare expansion from the bill:

The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the negotiations.

But Reid is described as so frustrated with Lieberman that he is not ready to sacrifice a key element of the health care bill, and first wants to see the Congressional Budget Office cost analysis of the Medicare buy-in. The analysis is expected early this week.

“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.”

Further support for this story is that Hot Air is reporting that President Obama has summoned Senate Democrats to the White House and describes why this story is likely true:

If it’s kabuki, why send the bill to CBO to be scored? Reid could simply hold onto it, wait for Lieberman to preemptively shoot it down, and then claim the “ol’ college try” political cover he needs to please the left. By sending it to CBO, he’s taking a risk: Given the crumbling polls and wavering by Blue Dogs like Nelson and Lincoln, if it comes back graded as a budget-buster, centrists may decide that there’s no way to get to 60 and the whole thing could collapse. Don’t forget either that they’re desperate to pass this by Christmas so that public anger will cool a bit over the holidays and The One will have a major accomplishment to stroke in his State of the Union speech. If it drags into January — as one Senate aide tells John Hawkins will certainly happen — those benefits are lost, which leaves Reid with little time now to mess around with kabuki. In fact, according to Politico, if they don’t hold a cloture vote by the end of this week, this thing ain’t happening in December. Besides, if it’s all kabuki, why rely on Lieberman to be a scapegoat “no” vote instead of recruiting your own? Mark Pryor comes from a red state and isn’t up for reelection until 2014; progressives aren’t going to go after him and give up a seat, especially that far into the future.

This appears to be another case of “with the help of the liberal media, we can sell anything to the American voters.”  Reid and leading Democratic Senators really believed that they could sell an expansion of Medicare, a single payer system, to the American voters as a compromise and a better solution than a public option.  In fact, Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) described the ‘compromise’ expansion of medicare as “an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me who have been arguing for a single-payer system.”

While it is a topic too big for this post, anyone that knows people in England or Canada and have heard the first hand stories of their National Health Services, know the many failings of single payer, government run health care system.