Sen. Lieberman is at it again, frustrating the party with which he caucuses:

In a surprise setback for Democratic leaders, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, said on Sunday that he would vote against the health care legislation in its current form.

This potentially spells the end of the notion (in 2009 at least ) of expanding Medicare to qualified individuals as young as 55.

Now Senate Democrats face what is perhaps their final and most difficult challenge: Even after stripping out the proposed Medicare expansion and other such provisions of concern to the fiscally cautious, the bill before them would still have “a lot of good things in it,” according to Lieberman. Will they pass that bill? Will they enact this “lot of good things”? Or will they allow what some consider “the great” to become the triumphant enemy of “the good”?

Presumably, rational minds would argue: “Take what you can get. Pass now the reforms that would do good (e.g., preventing the exclusion of people who have pre-existing conditions) — and return tomorrow to fight once more for the rest.”

The trillion-dollar question: Are there 60 senators and 218 representatives with rational minds?