Joe Biden update: He's back safely into seclusion

Well, now we know the Obama administration knows its healthcare reform program is in deep trouble:

It's bringing in the Big Gun.

According to the Washington Post this afternoon, Joe Biden, who's mainly been focused on swearing folks in and successfully getting the economy back on one foot, will wade into the healthcare debate next week.

He will give his "first major health policy address," speaking to the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners on Tuesday.

Chances are pretty good Biden will support Obama's plans. Having been in the Senate since long after the Capitol dome was completed, Biden will probably also spend telephone time working his ex-colleagues, who have their own safe healthcare plan, to vote in favor of changing the healthcare landscape for everybody else.

And then Biden, who turns 67 in November, has decided to enter the Leisure World retirement community Wednesday in Silver Spring, Md.

Not for the talent nights, but to explain to resident seniors the effects on Medicare of the proposed healthcare reforms. He'll be accompanied there by Kathleen Sebelius, who's 61 and still manages to be secretary of Health and Human Services.

Because the administration's top priority is domestic healthcare reforms, Biden was recently dispatched to Iraq to talk a lot with leaders there and pretty much wrap up the war. When asked during his travels for comment on Obama's comment that Kanye West was a "jackass," Biden had no comment.

Which saved a lot of trouble.

Because it's so hard to keep up with him, we've fallen a little behind in keeping Ticket readers up to speed on the Veepster's daily schedule.

Here's Monday's, for example:

Monday, September 14, 2009
The Vice President will be in Washington, DC. There are no public events scheduled.

And here's the vice president's schedule for today, Saturday and Sunday:

Friday, September 18 – Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Vice President returned to Wilmington, DE earlier this morning. He will remain in Delaware through the weekend. No public events are scheduled.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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