10/22: Stopping The Health Care Train

Lately conservative bloggers have seemed a bit absent from the health care debate, as liberal bloggers have dominated the discussion by making so much noise about a strong public option. But now righty bloggers are celebrating a health care victory of their own. The rightroots are delighted that the Senate voted against "a 10-year freeze of scheduled cuts to doctors' Medicare payments" (which Michelle Malkin described as "a $247 billion payoff to doctors groups as an enticement to support Obamacare"). Conservative bloggers are portraying this vote as a major defeat for health care reform, since (in their view) it will increase the projected cost of the eventual legislation and therefore scare away wavering Dems. Erick Erickson explains: "This makes it much more difficult for Obamacare to pass and virtually impossible for it to pass without significant deficit blowing cost additions."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Today at noon, in a coordinated effort, a host of conservative bloggers (RedState Directors, Geraghty, Hillyer, Faughnan, Huston, Dave in Texas) called on NY-23 candidate Dede Scozzafava (R) to withdraw from the race and throw her support to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Meanwhile, other conservative bloggers (Malkin, Lane, Lawler, Allahpundit, Reynolds) are mocking Scozzafava after she held an event outside Hoffman's campaign office, only to find herself surrounded by Hoffman supporters holding signs.
• Liberal bloggers (Moulitsas, Bowers, Walker) are accusing VA GOV candidate Creigh Deeds (D) of alienating his base by distancing himself from the public option during the 10/20 debate.
• Liberal bloggers (Marshall, Benen, Heather) spent the past few days criticizing Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) for refusing to condemn the LA judge who denied a marriage license to an interracial couple. Although Vitter's spokesperson eventually released a statement addressing the issue, lefty bloggers (Benen, Aravosis, Morrill) are still not satisfied.
• Conservative bloggers (Johnson, Morrissey, Gaffney, Rubin) loved ex-VP Dick Cheney's attack on Obama's foreign policy.

SENATE: A Blow To Health Care Reform?

Conservative bloggers are celebrating the fact that the Senate blocked "a 10-year freeze of scheduled cuts to doctors' Medicare payments, legislation that was considered important to getting a broader healthcare bill through later this year":

• RedState's Erickson: "We, RedState readers, have defeated Harry Reid today and delivered a significant blow to the potential passage of Obamacare. We held every Republican Senator including [ME Sen.] Olympia Snowe and [NC Sen.] Richard Burr. Harry Reid just ran to the Senate floor and cried that he cannot get enough votes to pass the doctors' bribe to support Obamacare. He blamed the AMA for misleading him. He might actually want to look to RedState. Our readers have generated hundreds and hundreds of phone calls in 24 hours to pretty much every Republican Senator. Several who had considered voting for cloture backed down. And now the end run around Obamacare costs has been defeated. This makes it much more difficult for Obamacare to pass and virtually impossible for it to pass without significant deficit blowing cost additions. Well done activists!"
• Malkin: "It looked like the fix was in. The 'Doc Fix,' that is. As the Heritage Foundation has been reporting, the White House and Dem leaders scurried today to try and pass a $247 billion payoff to doctors groups as an enticement to support Obamacare. Surprise: The fix failed. The cloture voted on S. 1776 failed by 47-53."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "What's next? The [MI Sen. Debbie] Stabenow bill will have to get attached to the ObamaCare proposal -- which means the CBO will rescore it with the additional $250 billion cost. That will make the deficit hit overt and create what The Hill calls a 'poison pill' for the bill, and that's before the progressives try to jam a public option into it. Without it, Reid loses the AMA. It's a disaster for Reid and the Democrats."

In other health care news, liberal bloggers (McCarter, Black) are delighted that the CBO projected that a robust public option would reduce the cost of health care reform. The netroots (Bowers, Dayen) are praising Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) for trying to bring a bill with a robust public option to the House floor.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Good Trade/Bad Trade

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias:

"In lieu of another boring post about health insurance excise taxes let's talk raw politics. At the moment, there are two big disagreements between the moderates and the liberals on health care. On the one hand, the moderates want to finance a large amount of the subsidies through an excise tax on expensive health insurance plans. Liberals don't like that idea. On the other hand, the liberals want a robust public option while moderates are looking for ways to kill or defang this.

There are two ways you can imagine these problems getting logrolled away. One is to 'level up' in which both sides get something that they think will be a transformative tool to change America for the better -- the excise tax and a robust public option. The other is to 'level down' in which both sides force the other to back now -- no excise tax, and weak or absent public option. Either would be a compromise, but leveling up would be a much better outcome than leveling down. Which happens will tell us a lot about the health of our political institutions."

LEST WE FORGET: Contrarianism Is Alive And Well

Yglesias:

"The Economist wondered the other day if the negative reaction to SuperFreakonomics represented the end of contrarianism as a popular journalistic trope. The answer, it seems, is no. Slate is doubling-down on contrarianism by offering the case for Creed. This is ridiculous. Creed is a good band like solar panels are black. Your memory is correct. Absolutely everything about this is terrible. I bet al-Qaeda plays this to recruits in order to whip them into an anti-Christian fervor."