6/18: Is Health Care Reform In Danger?

Liberal bloggers are growing increasingly worried about the prospects for health care reform. After the CBO projected that the Senate Finance Committee's proposed bill would cost $1.6T over 10 years, Committee Chairman Max Baucus told reporters that Dems "need more time to work on bringing the bill's cost to below $1 trillion." Now liberal bloggers are concerned that Senate Dems will significantly weaken the bill in an effort to cut costs. Jonathan Cohn complains that "knocking the price tag all the way down to $1 trillion will mean a lot less money to subsidize insurance for people who can't afford it and far fewer guarantees that insurance would be adequate." Ezra Klein agrees, calling the $1T number "an arbitrary target." Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, are delighted by the recent developments. Ed Morrissey declares: "Republicans have a great opening here, as the Democrats appear completely unprepared for the mammoth costs associated with ObamaCare."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Bowers, Hamsher, digby, desmoinesdem) continue to push hard for a public health insurance option. Several bloggers (Attaturk, Dworkin) are citing the new NBC/WSJ poll, which found that "three in four people said a public plan is extremely or quite important."
• Conservative bloggers (Lowry, Morrissey) continue to criticize Pres. Obama's response to the situation in Iran; some (Johnson, Hawkins, Steyn) are even accusing Obama of "siding with the regime." Liberal bloggers (Ackerman, Yglesias, Duss) are defending Obama's approach and blasting his conservative critics.
• Liberal bloggers (Roth, Partridge, Benen, Willis) are buzzing about the latest details concerning Sen. John Ensign's (R-NV) extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer. On the right side of the blogosphere, Michelle Malkin is pleased that Ensign resigned his leadership post as chair of the Senate GOP Policy Committee, while Mike Potemra thinks this move was "an overreaction."
• Liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Benen) are offering Obama qualified praise for his decision to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, but they still think he has a long way to go. LGBT bloggers are still very upset with Obama.
• Conservative bloggers (Lane, Goldberg, Morrissey, Hinderaker, McCain) are keeping up a steady stream of buzz about Obama's firing of inspector general Gerald Walpin.

HEALTH CARE REFORM: The Going Gets Tough

Liberal bloggers are growing increasingly worried about the prospects of health care reform now that the Senate Finance Committee may "postpone action on a health-care overhaul bill until July":

• The Washington Post's Klein: "Health reform is, I think it fair to say, in danger right now. [...] Put simply, the Finance Committee wanted its bill to cost $1 trillion over 10 years. The CBO returned an early estimate to the panel on Tuesday night: $1.6 trillion over 10 years. The specifics of the estimate have not been made public. But the final number changed everything. Max Baucus, the chairman of the committee, pushed markup back behind the July 4th recess. He has promised to get the bill below $1 trillion over 10 years. That's very dangerous."
• Firedoglake's Scarecrow: "If you were hoping for meaningful healthcare reform this year, the chances just diminished, a lot. This NYT article depicts Congressional Democrats working on healthcare reform as leaderless and in near panic over how easily the Republicans conned them on the CBO cost analysis and how quickly the Republicans misrepresented that incomplete analysis to disparage the entire health reform effort."
• The New Republic's Cohn: "Attention fellow liberals who want health care reform: You are in danger of losing the fight for universal health insurance. And it's not only -- or even primarily -- because of the public plan. It's because of the money."

Conservative bloggers, on the other hand, are delighted by the recent developments:

• Malkin: "[Is] Obamacare on the rocks? [...] With delay comes opportunity...opportunity to continue making your voices heard."
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "Roll Call is reporting that the Senate Finance Committee is delaying the markup of its health care bill -- scheduled for next Tuesday -- until after the July 4 recess. The reason why this is major news is that Congress was already looking at an ambitious timeline to get health care legislation passed by July 31, before lawmakers go on summer recess. Now the earliest the Finance Committee will begin to rewrite its bill would be July 6, meaning they'll have less than a month to: finalize their proposed legislation, merge it with the bill currently under consideration by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, introduce it to the broader Senate, debate it, and pass it."
• Hot Air's Morrissey: "Republicans have a great opening here, as the Democrats appear completely unprepared for the mammoth costs associated with ObamaCare. The same lack of realization doomed the [Bill] Clinton effort in 1993-4 as well. [...] Supposedly, all of the Hope and Change would make 2009 different from 1993, but so far, it looks like a replay. Obama has outsourced the development of the plan to Congress, but it's generating the same problems for the Democrats as it did before. It would cost far too much, especially as deficits skyrocket from other Obama spending initiatives."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Strategic Nonviolence

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias:

"Jon Chait observes that 'For a revolution to succeed, it generally needs one of two things to happen: Either it needs its own weapons, or it needs mass defections by the state security forces.' He also sees some evidence that some elements of the [Iranian] security forces may be contemplating defection.

I think it's worth emphasizing that in the modern world at least, the balance is tipped pretty overwhelmingly to security service defection rather than actual armed overthrow of the powers that be. The reality is that modern military technology makes it extraordinarily difficult to actually defeat a state on the battlefield. An dissident movement just isn't going to be able to be able to blow up tanks and airplanes. Under the circumstances, strategic nonviolence is a vital tactic. If you were to try to fight the security forces -- shoot some policemen, say -- you'd encourage a more serious crackdown. It's through nonviolent resistance that you heighten the psychological contradictions, and encourage the regime and its enforcers to blink. From the Velvet Revolution to Tiananmen Square to the Orange Revolution to what's happening today in Iran, the brave dissidents are essentially daring the security forces to beat or kill them. The bet is that when push comes to shove, people in the Iranian security forces have some humane and patriotic instincts and will recoil from the idea of using mass violence against their fellow citizens. And it's a terrifying bet. We've seen time and again that it's a bet that often pays off, but as we learned in China 20 years ago there are no guarantees."

LEST WE FORGET: Actually, They're Not Similar At All

TPM's Eric Kleefeld reports that Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) received "massive heckling" from other Twitter users after he wrote: "Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House":

• ArjunJaikumar @petehoekstra i spilled some lukewarm coffee on myself just now, which is somewhat analogous to being boiled in oil
• chrisbaskind @petehoekstra My neighbor stopped me to talk today. Now I know what it is like to be questioned by the Basij!
• luckbfern @petehoekstra I stand in solidarity with the oppressed rich white men of Repub Party in the House. #GOPfail Allah Akbar!
• ceedub7 @petehoekstra I got a splinter in my hand today. Felt just like Jesus getting nailed to the cross.
• TahirDuckett @petehoekstra ran through the sprinklers this morning, claimed solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina
• paganmist @petehoekstra Had to move all my stuff to a new office w/o a corner view. Now i know what the Trail of Tears was like. #GOPfail