"Rahm must have been swearing up a storm."

Washington Fresco

By Nevin McNevin

Looks like Obama administration sticker shock is starting to take hold in the U.S. Senate. A dozen Democrats and one Independent have refused to give their support to a leadership shell game to hide the cost of rising Medicare doctors’ fees.

Under a scheme said to have been devised by the President’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a Medicare pay increase for doctors was stripped out of the health care reform plan, and made into a separate bill. Price tag for the doctors’ fix: about $247 billion over ten years. With this hefty sum stripped out of the bill and made free-standing, health care reform appears to cost that much less.

How else could President Obama appear to keep his promise that he’ll sign a bill that won’t add “one dime to our deficits?”

Put to the test in the Senate, though, the strategy was judged too cute by half, and sank like a brick.

Abandoning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and voting against a motion to limit debate: seasoned, respected Democrats Bill Nelson of Florida, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Jon Tester of Montana, and independent Joe Lieberman. It was a unanimous “nay” from Republicans.

Rahm must have been swearing up a storm.

Word on the street: the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is rubbing a couple of other Committee Chairmen the wrong way. Apparently, Montana Democrat Max Baucus's approach to health care reform is a bit too plodding for the Chairmen of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. Tom Harkin and Chris Dodd drift way more liberal than Olympia-Snow-appeaser Baucus.

["Nevin" is the nom de plume of a prominent Washington, DC broadcast journalist who prefers to not jeopardize a successful career. The well-plugged in "Nevin" dumps all the inside stuff he/she/it can't officially report with under-the-transom titillation that would get "Nevin" dumped big time. Veteran WH press corps Nevin is cut from the same political cloth as the lion's share of the Mainstream Media. The only place you can peer under Nevin's kilt is on Chickaboomer.]