Just like Lieberfail's continuing justifications for opposing HCR keep changing, so too seem to be the selling points of each new iteration of the bill.
First it was the 'robust' public option.
Then it was just the 'public option.
Then it was a weak public option.
Then it was a weak public option with opt-out.
Then it was the medicare buy-in.
Now it is? Well, we're not exactly sure. The latest buzzwords from the beltway are "bends the cost curve down", which, as any mathematically trained person will ask, "by how much?". We'll have to see.
I have noticed a few other things, however, that make me wonder if there isn't a backdoor deal in the works: The progressive dems have not been as loud as previously in the debate. Even some of the insiders have tempered their language a bit. Not only that, but there seems to be a caving party on the part of leadership. No one seems surprised by this...
I have to wonder if Reid didn't buy off a number of conservadems with Stupak, especially since when Stupak like language was rejected from the senate bill, a logjam seemed to break.
How could this work?
From here:
Step 1 is to get all 60 democrats on board with some kind of a bill, no matter how absurd.
Now, the bill can still be fixed after cloture has been voted on, but new amendments can't be offered; so they would have to have been introduced beforehand. The problem here is that the committee report would be debatable (even if the motion to proceed isn't). That would still allow the conservadems and rethuglicans to demand cloture.
How to fix this?
Step 2 would be that a group of senators would offer an amendment on the intervening cloture day to replace the bill with the house version.
Step 3 would be the a senator motioning to table all amendments except the one for step 2.
Step 4 requires the adoption of the amendment in step 2.
By the house and senate passing two identical bills, there is no conference committee convened, and the motion to limit debate for the initial bill limits debate for the entire process.
Step 5 involves Reid pulling a bunch of the earmarks and other little things out of the senate HCR bill and packaging them quietly into the defense appropriations bill. (this may have already happened, and might be a clue that the senate is going down this path)
Conservadems get to flaunt their defiance of women's issues as cover to support a bill.
Progressives get a bill back from the era of debate when things were described in terms of 'working' rather than 'wtf'.
Lieberman gets to eat cake.
So all, tell me why this won't work in the comments, or why it might, or what evidence there is either way.