Did the Democrats squander the best chance to pass health care they will ever see?

No, the Republicans are already positioning themselves to come up with a “totally new” plan that will sound exactly like the ‘other’ plan, only they thought it up.

Did anyone really want to fix health care? Really? Really?

The mess that is under consideration isn’t worth passing. The American people will be better off if this fails. The current bill does not address the basic problems with the system: multiple public and private administrative systems, pharmaceutical prices out of control, high cost of malpractice insurance, huge variations in the coverage of health care policies. This bill is also laden with pork for special interest groups. The last straw, IMHO, was removal of “public option” from the bill. As far as I can see, there is no cap on premiums as a percentage of income. The working poor and middle class are getting screwed again. The Democrats were so desperate to pass something that they have overlooked the basic problem. What is needed is a standardized health system, if not single-payer, at least single coverage.

Better to just let this monster die and try again later. After serious lobbying and campaign finance reform is in place. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies have too many lawmakers in their pockets.

liliko, you’ll hope so, my friend, if you ever need to go to the hospital—even for a hang nail.

Ooops, meant to say:

You’ll hope NOT,

I shouldn’t be typing at 4:30 a.m.

The Democrats had the chance to trully bring change to this country but instead they saw a mandate that wasn’t there, the American people don’t want a one sided system and they made that clear at the tea parties last year and they made it clear tonight, if the Democrats continue to push their far left agenda without listening to the American people they will experience huge losses in November.

@YARNLADY loll…ditto!

The stock prices of health insurance companies went up yesterday.
What do you think that means?

The Democrats tried to work with the Republicans. The Republicans did everything they could to make this not work.
It’s a shame.

Most of the high ranking Democrats seem unphased by this. Which leads me to believe they’re finally going to grow a pair and take it into reconciliation. That will make the required majority 51.

There is still a fleeting chance. The House can adopt the Senate bill, and it will not have to be voted on again in the Senate. But they cannot change the legislation in any way. I don’t think this is going to happen. Pelosi and company have consistently turned a blind eye to the national mood, the news media, and the polls, and seem determined to self-destruct over this. Obama will go into his SOTU address empty-handed. Meanwhile,they’ll continue to bicker and tweak and cripple the bill even more, then send it back to the Senate some time in February, where it will be filibustered to death if they even bother to bring it up. Pelosi will shrug her shoulders and say, “Oh well. We tried.” Then they can all go back to their offices to await the slaughter in November.

Don’t count on Reconciliation to save it. Even if they have the will to pull it off, it will take months of heavy maneuvering to get it through the process. They can’t afford to go on fiddling with this while unemployment continues to eat away at the country like a cancer. But then, they haven’t done anything rational since they picked this up, so who knows – maybe they’ll do it, leading to an even greater slaughter in November. Maybe even President Palin in 2012.

The bill was a monstrosity anyway. Even Sen. Snowe’s “trigger option” would be preferable to a bill with no public option to keep the insurance companies from falling on our necks like wolves on a flock of sheep. But it was better than nothing. Now we will have close to 50 million uninsured, people will continue to die in droves because they can’t get coverage, and businesses will either go under or slash coverage to the bone because they can’t keep up with the premiums. Then we will have another 150 million or so underinsured.

WTG, Congress. May you all rot in HELL.

Agree with @IchtheosaurusRex . With no “public option”, this bill is worse than the existing state of affairs.

@IchtheosaurusRex : No point in sending Congress to Hell. We elected them. Since about half of us think there’s no problem with health care, it looks like your predictions may be right.

We just have to wait until that half has problems that affect them personally. Give it another generation.

I sincerly hope the healthcare package fails. there are many loopholes in it and we just do not need it. i am for everyone, thats a legal American, having healthcare. this was tried in Tennessee years ago and it failed miserably. government cannot be responsible for peoples healthcare. in Tennessee, there was so much fraud that it almost caused the state to go bankrupct. people from other states came to Tennessee to receive free healthcare. they used other peoples cards and the fraud began. many people have been arrested. the same will apply to the Federal Govenment, if this package passes. and, whats the real reason that the president is pushing for this healtcare reform??

@john65pennington , the President is either

a) an evil Muslim Kenyan Socialist bent on destroying the country, or
b) Somebody who is trying to address a problem that has plagued this country for over a hundred years.

Take a look at this graph.

The x-axis shows how much money the respective nations pay per person on health care. The y-axis shows life expectancy. The size of the bubbles indicate doctor visits per person. We spend 3 times what Japan does to live 5 years less. We are the only developed nation in the world without national health care, and this is what we get for our trouble. Who wouldn’t want to fix that?

@IchtheosaurusRex Republicans?

@IchtheosaurusRex Insurance and pharmaceutical companies that spend billions buying politicians and PR scare-campaigns.

They don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Just look at the way Canada, New Zealand and the Scandinavian countries do it; cut and paste.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land, that is absolute nonsense.

The health reform bill is an extremely complex piece of legislation. The public option was just one part of it, as Obama has repeatedly said. I agree that the bill would be better with a public option, but to say the rest of it is “worse than nothing” is simply insane.

Here is what the Senate bill does:
• Outlaws rescision—the practice of dropping people from insurance when they get sick.
• Forces insurance companies to take people with pre-existing conditions.
• Supplies $900 billion in subsidies so poor people and sick people can afford insurance.
• Extends insurance to 96% of Americans, 15 million more than today.

If you think that’s “worse than nothing,” perhaps you should talk to the people without health care today who are sick and dying and cannot afford coverage. This bill will help them in real, material ways.

I’d also like to know why you think the public option is so essential. The way I see it, the only reason the public option existed was to force competition with private, for-profit insurance companies. And the Senate bill contains a similar measure. A private but non-profit entity on the insurance exchange. A public option would probably work better. But it seems like many liberals just want a public option because it echoes their dreams of government-run single payer insurance.

You know who I blame for losing the MA senate seat? I don’t blame Blue Dogs. I don’t blame Obama. I blame hyperventilating liberals like you who are unable and unwilling to see the nuance in issues like health reform bill. Who are apparently happy to let 15 million uninsured people continue to suffer if they don’t pass your perfect and wholly politically unfeasible form of health reform, or if insurance companies benefit even slightly. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Your attitude has contributed to the bullshit narrative that the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.

@Mandomike, the “tea parties” don’t represent “the American people.”

The tea parties are a faction of the American people. A faction that is unable to articulate even a single cogent policy position except that they don’t like Obama and taxes (which are not being raised). And you ought to be embarrassed of their ignorance.

@john65pennington, I’m going to respond to what you said point by point because I don’t think you know what the hell you are talking about.

there are many loopholes in it
Support this assertion. Name them.

this was tried in Tennessee years ago and it failed miserably.
Why on earth do you think this is relevant. Tennessee’s system was single-payer. Do you even understand that the health reform bill is not single payer? At all? Do you understand this is why liberals hate the bill so much—because they want single payer and it’s not anything like single payer?

government cannot be responsible for peoples healthcare.
Clearly they can as other countries have government run health care and are doing fine. However, see above: the bill is not single pay, not government run health care. If you don’t understand this basic fact then you should not even be having this discussion.

and, whats the real reason that the president is pushing for this healtcare reform??
What are you insinuating? He campaigned on it. Most Americans want health care reform. It is costing our economy billions of dollars and the system punishes sick people for being sick. Why wouldn’t you want to push for health care reform?

@stranger_in_a_strange_land, I feel like I should respond to you point by point because you say many things that are just plain wrong.

• The current bill does not address the basic problems with the system: multiple public and private administrative systems,
How would you address these problems in your ideal bill, beyond urging the use of electronic records and creating a panel for harmonizing these systems and suggesting ideal medicine techniques across the board?

• pharmaceutical prices out of control,
Really? There’s a provision mandating transparency for consumer drug pricing which will bring down costs. source What’s your solution?

• high cost of malpractice insurance,
This is a tiny fraction of health care costs and it is part and parcel of the way that civil liabilities are handled in the American justice system. Tort reform is a complex issue and it is not a panacea. What’s your solution?

• huge variations in the coverage of health care policies.
This is perhaps the silliest claim, as the bill introduces sweeping regulation that mandates that policies must cover everyone, even people with pre-existing conditions.

• This bill is also laden with pork for special interest groups.
Cite it. And the small amount of money we gave to Nebraska to override its Medicaid issue was worth it for Nelson’s vote.

• The last straw, IMHO, was removal of “public option” from the bill.
See previous post. I agree this is bad, but the Senate bill introduces a private but nonprofit insurance entity that will, hopefully, provide the same competition to bring to for-profit prices as the public option. That was the entire function of the public option. It probably won’t work as well, but it’s something. And the public option was never the white whale you make it out to be.

• As far as I can see, there is no cap on premiums as a percentage of income.
Then you haven’t looked. “The Senate bill’s out-of-pocket cap of $11,900 is on a family plan. An individual plan would have a $5,950 cap.” source

• The working poor and middle class are getting screwed again.
Support this assertion. It is nonsensical on the face of it because the bill provides 900 billion in subsidies for working poor and middle class who can’t afford insurance.

• The Democrats were so desperate to pass something that they have overlooked the basic problem.
The basic problem is extremely complicated and anyone who says otherwise is just looking for easy answers.

• What is needed is a standardized health system, if not single-payer, at least single coverage.
In your ideal fantasyland. Unfortunately, politics are a reality and this is simply not an option. I’d like it to be, but it’s not, and part of being a responsible adult means dealing with reality and what is realistically and politically possible instead of fantasy.

And as other countries with universal but non-single-payer insurance (such as Switzerland) show, it is not a given that single-pay is “what is needed.” It’s an easy answer, though.

I look forward to your response, and I hope you are either willing to defend your assertions or admit they are unfounded.

I’m trying to figure out what the concern is about. As I recall, Teddy Kennedy was already dead, meaning that there were only 59 Dems in the Senate when the Senate had 60 votes to pass their version, because they got some Republicans to sign on. Is that not still the case? Seems to me that since it’s not like one of the original 60 lost his seat, it’s a matter of 60 vs 61, not 59 vs 60. What am I missing?

@dalepetrie, the governor of MA had appointed a replacement for Kennedy that was the 60th yes vote on the bill. That replacement has now been replaced by a no vote.

It’s not really going to be a big deal if the house democracts act mature and just pass the goddamn senate bill, which is close to what they would have ended up doing anyway. It’s doubtful we would have held on to our 60 seat majority for much longer, so this isn’t a tragedy. But you can always count on democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

@Quingu – OK, that’s what I was missing. Thanks!

I think overall this actually might be a good thing, to be honest. I think there may still be a path to passing health care reform, and though I’m a huge fan of single payer, the analysis I’ve read by some very smart people points to the fact that even though this is far from a perfect bill, it’s a pretty good bill that would do a lot for people. Yes, I don’t know why we have been arguing about this since June, it seems like it shouldn’t take that long and I share the frustration with people who say that we should have spent far less time on this and far more time on a jobs bill to get people (like myself…I’ve been out of work for almost a year) back to work.

But what I think this will lead to is Obama and Dems in general striking a more populist tone than they have over the past year and many of the things that Dems and Independents have been screaming for will FINALLY get addressed. And just in time, because once that starts to happen, I think we’ll see the poll numbers for Dems to start going back up. I don’t know that the Dems still won’t lose seats, but I think actually getting on the ball (and I say this in terms of from a public perception standpoint, from where I sit, Obama has accomplished a LOT) on things that move poll numbers when there is still 10 months left to mid-terms will allow Dems to have at least the majority in both houses, whereas if things had continued the way they were going, Dems could have lost one or both houses.

In other words, I think the Dems needed a game changer, and even one that is bad on the surface still gives them a fresh start. We’ll see if they screw it up again like they always seem to…and were we to have an “establishment” President, I’d be betting on a pretty big screw up, but Obama I think can do it. Watch for a barnburner of a State of the Union address next week, if we get to levy fines on the banks who took advantage of the bailouts, announce a jobs program and get the house to accept the Senate bill, this loss will have been worth it. And of course, this was a special election, Brown only serves until 2012, so Dems run a real candidate then, Brown becomes a footnote, a catalyst for more change on the left than on the right conceivably. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.

@dalepetrie, the problem is that Democrats are notoriously bad at “reading the tea leaves,” so to speak. I think many Democrats will conclude from this that instead of becoming more progressive they instead need to hike to the right and become “centrist,” which would be just about the worst strategy possible.

Also, populism is a double-edged sword and a hop skip and jump away from just plain ignorance. There’s a reason our founding fathers were skeptical of direct democracy. Mobs of angry people don’t make good policy.

Part of this upset can be explained by the fact that Coakley ran an abysmal campaign and barely even tried. But it is depressing that Americans need to be cajoled by campaign propaganda to vote for someone who supports the policy issues they support. Scratch that—I think most Americans cannot even interact intelligently with the concept of “policy” and vote based on whichever candidate more successfully sucks them off by appearing “likeable” or “one of them,” as if democracy were an episode of American idol. In an enlightened country, having a “good campaign” should not be a necessary condition to win an election. I’m pretty fucking disgusted with my country.

There’s a lot of great analysis about what went wrong over at 538, this piece in particular does a pretty good job of dividing up the blame. I too agree that more centrist is NOT the way to go, though there are some things that are universal…like job creation, even Republicans can get behind that these days (to a point). What I haven’t seen, and did not expect to see with Obama is him standing up to the Republicans when they become bullies. He’s a very conciliatory person, a great negotiator, a deal maker, but he doesn’t seem to get that it just isn’t in the interest of Republicans in the current political climate to achieve consensus, and therefore they are not dealing from a point of intellectual integrity, but from a politically driven agenda that says obstructionism is the path to reclaiming power. In an environment such as this, our leaders HAVE to be willing to say, “fuck you, I gave you a chance to play nice and you didn’t take it, so now we’re doing it MY way.” If he would do that just once, I think it would earn him back a lot of the respect he’s lost from his base and from the independents. He was so good at pushing back against the lies and misinformation during his campaign, but he’s let so much of the rumor mill take hold during his Presidency that people have been convinced that left is right and up is down. I think in the ideal world, this would steel the resolve of the Dems and they could actually expand their majorities in 2012. However, given the leadership we have, the best I think we can hope for is that while they will never be willing to play adversarial politics (which is why the Republican party even still exists, because they are all too willing to do so), that they may be willing to play the political game of addressing the issues about which Americans are screaming the loudest. It’s a political mistake, but knowing that Dems will never grow a spine, it’s the least damaging of potential mistakes they could make.

I agree that Obama’s conciliatory stance with Republicans has not paid off. I doubt he’s stupid enough to think it’s good policy to do that, so perhaps he’ll conclude now that it’s time to shift gears from a political standpoint.

I don’t know. I made a New Year’s resolution not to get upset about politics anymore and now I’ve basically failed.

@westy81585 -

> Republicans?

I don’t worry about them. They are all headed for Hell anyway. I was thinking more along the lines of Democrats like Nelson and that traitor Leiberfuck, the anti-abortion bozos in the House, and especially Reid and Pelosi for dilly-dallying around and fumbling the ball inside the 1. Game Over. Bad guys win.

@Qingu There are many good points to make and you have made many TY. And to believe someone else’s position is silly, ludicrous, asinine or what is all fair game but to make it personal with “I blame hyperventilating liberals like you…” we are better than that. We on Fluther are not those of AB, YA, Askville etc, we can debate civilly without going to the sandbox. We are better than that so please lets be civil and all the rest of US (ME TOO) as well.

With that let me make a few observations. @stranger_in_a_strange_land The reason there is so much pork in the bill or any bill for that point is US, we the people. One man’s pork is another man’s beef. The reason politicians put pork in its because the people in there sphere of influence want it. Some one in the north wants 2 new colleges, their politician adds that pork, some in the east want a expanded recreational are their politician adds that pork. Why? So when election time comes those they fed the pork to will hopefully vote to keep them in office; they can say “look at wjat I did for you? My opponent didn’t”. We are the main reason for all the pork.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land @Qingu The high cost of malpractice insurance? That was us too. Doctors are not machines they do make mistakes, honest mistakes but for that people think they should be rewarded 6 figures of not 7 for any suffering they had to endure even when it was not permanent. Add to that greedy lawyers who would make merchandise of the pain and grief the patient felt to enrich their pockets.

@Qingu “This bill is also laden with pork for special interest groups.
Cite it. And the small amount of money we gave to Nebraska to override its Medicaid issue was worth it for Nelson’s vote.” There are too many to mention let alone research but everyone has heard of the “Bridge to Nowhere”, that was probably the most egregious example over the past year. It happens even if you don’t know all the places it does happen.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land “The working poor and middle class are getting screwed again.” They are getting screwed now, every time someone goes to the emergency room for something they could have prevented if they had health care or a teen mother gives birth SOMEONE maybe you and me are picking up the tab. Sure they will go after the father but how long will that take? Not like you are going to recoup all the money from some kid who flips burgers and has to have his parents put tires on his car and pay his insurance. Health care or not….the middle is getting screwed anyhow.

@dalepetrie Before Kennedy passes away they had the numbers to vote it in without having to cow to anyone, but they could not come together to do it. Like all you needed was a field goal to win the game but you are on the 2 year line with 1st and goal and rather just kicking the field goal you try to win with a touchdown and try powering it in on a run and getting stuffed, then instead of kicking you figure you got it to the 1 yard line it is a given so you don’t kick get stuffed and now you have to go into overtime where you could have been popping the bubbly. You basically snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They had the win but you failed to take it.

@Qingu ,You are the one who should be embarrassed that you don’t here the echoes of the voters on Tuesday night,,you don’t get it just like Pelosi or Obama doesn’t get it, this country is middle right whether you like it or not,we don’t want government intruding in our lives and we don’t want to live in Canada,,this is the The United States of America where dreams are still alive and can still come true. Your right about one thing I don’t like Obama but I do not like him because of his socialist agenda, not because he is black.

@Mandomike, even if your views did represent the majority of Americans, I’m not interested in what’s popular. I’m interested in what makes sense and what’s morally right. You haven’t said a single cogent thing on this thread; you’ve just asserted over and over again that most Americans think like you.

Fortunately this is a delusion. Your views are represented by a dwindling segment of the American population. Your faction of Americana is old and uneducated and will mostly die off in a few decades. No wonder it’s so important for you to insist your views are still somehow relevant.

@Hypocrisy_Central, the bridge to nowhere… in the health care bill? Wha?

@Mandomike It sounds an awful lot like you don’t know at all what you’re talking about.

As a college graduate with a full time job who can’t afford health insurance, and is watching the republicans pull out out all the good parts of the bill whilst scaring people like you into thinking Obama is a “socialist” (when in reality he’s actually been a fairly RIGHT leaning president, and we’re more conservative than during the Clinton years).... I’m offended and think you should probably pull your head out of your rear end and take a look around….. rather than repeat this nonsense you’ve been fed by Glen Beck and the like.

There is absolutely no question that the American health care system needs reform. Whether you’re Republican or Democrat or rich or poor or sick or healthy, this is the basic reality everyone must come to grips with. If you argue that isn’t true, you’re basically arguing that you’re stupid and/or uninformed.

So, it’s screwed up. A lot of people are suffering. Now… what to do about that? It seems to me that all we hear from the right is “Obama sucks!” and “don’t let the government do anything about healthcare!”. That’s the low road: it is very easy to sit back and take potshots at anything if you don’t have to be responsible for standing up and promoting a solution… it’s low risk, it’s cowardly if you keep it up.

I don’t care about right or left, liberal or conservative—but I care that we have an enormous problem, and somehow the children in adult bodies who are governing our country seem unable to see beyond their clique loyalties to solve it. That’s shameful.

There should be a magic gun somewhere that puts itself against the head of anyone who has negative things to say about a proposed plan—one that goes off if they don’t propose a credible alternative. Doing nothing is not an acceptable option.

@Qingu The Bridge to nowhere was not in the health care bill but it is an example of the pork that ends up in every bill because we the people want this and that for our neighborhood and out elected officials are more than willing to attempt to get it for rememberance at the next election where we will keep voting the clowns back in.

for those who may for some reason never heard of this bridge
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/palin.road.to.nowhere/index.html

@Qingu “And you ought to be embarrassed of their (tea party movement) ignorance.” You are correct! I spoke to every one of them and none are as intelligent as you.
The 2,900 page document called ‘health care’... its sole purpose is to make all american citizens clients of the state.

@Tomfafa, you are bearing false witness.

@HasntBeen, I agree.

Conservatives rejecting stuff for stupid reasons, I’m used to. Liberals should know better.

There are about 50 million people in America without health care. The idea that it is better for them to continue without health care than to provide cheap or free health care through heavily regulated insurance companies—because this somehow wouldn’t “punish” insurance companies enough—is not just insane, it’s immoral.

Aye. I lived in Mexico for a while. I had a very poor Mexican friend named Carlos—his idea of big money was to have $10 in his pocket. I asked him, when we first met, why he walked a bit stiff-legged… turns out he has a pin in his knee to repair a bone or something. This pin was installed by the free Mexican health system… a hospital in Baja run by the state. He complained that they didn’t do it quite right, but the fact is that they did it—in a country far poorer than the U.S., for a man who could not possibly afford health insurance.

If Mexico can do it, the U.S. can certainly do it. Our healthcare expenses exceed the entire Mexican GDP by quite a margin.

@HasntBeen, I just want to make it clear for the Tomfafas and Mandomikes of the world who might read your post and come to the wrong conclusion, as they tend to do: while Mexico’s health care system is government run, the senate health care bill is not. At all.

I think what Hasntbeen has showed is that many Americans believe if it is free it can’t be as good as what you pay top dollar for. Second, is that they know everyone cannot be elevated to the level of care they have now, and if everyone gets a cup of the kool-aid, the taste will be weaker for everyone. Those who have it now, don’t want to budge on what they have, to get a iota less, even if that means many don’t get a sip at all. That is why health care is a bust. It is we the people just as much as the political mooks in government.

@Hypocrisy_Central, your statement on “free” has literally nothing to do with any health care bill on the table. It does reflect ignorant Americans’ mistaken belief that the health bill is single-payer though (which, incidentally, also isn’t free).

You could be right that a lot of the opposition comes from privileged folks with health care who don’t want to share for fear that their care will get watered down. I don’t think there’s any actual evidence that this will be the case but it sure is repugnant.

@Hypocrisy_Central : That’s a nonsense conclusion. There is nothing in what I said that could be construed as indicating I think healthcare can be “free” in an absolute sense, nor am I recommending the Mexican model for America. What you’re doing is pure condescension without adequate basis.

The point is: the Mexicans, as poor as they are, have made this a priority and have a solution that works for their circumstances. By contrast, the U.S. is behind the rest of the industrialized world, let alone the 3rd world nations like Mexico: a poor person truly has no reasonable options.

This is what the naysayers do—post an endless stream of straw-man objections, without ever standing up and proposing solutions. That is what makes the magic gun go off: all criticism and no creativity or responsibility. If you have an alternative plan, tell us what it is!

@Qingu ,” I’m not interested in what’s popular. I’m interested in what makes sense and what’s morally right”.So you don’t care what the majority of the public wants?” Your views are represented by a dwindling segment of the American population.” This dwindling segment will vote the Democrats out of office in 2010 just like they took the seat of the prior Ted Kennedy, you can bet your ass on that one. Your arrogant views sound allot like Obama’s and it’s not working.

@Mandomike It sounds a lot like you don’t know what you’re talking about friend. The majority of Americans want a public option. Most polls put it in the 60%+ range in popularity. If anything they’re upset because the Democrats are being total push overs when they have complete control. Heck, if Bush was in office and wanted the public option and this health plan, he’d have passed it in 2 months with 51 votes through reconciliation.

But Obama and his “arrogance” is actually trying to get people from the other side of the aisle to contribute and do something…. But instead they decided they’re just going to jam their fingers in their ears and shout “NA NA NAN NA ANAN ANA”, while 40 million of us (myself included) lack health insurance.

Sounds like you need to take Glen Becks genitals out of your mouth and start thinking for yourself.

@HasntBeen I think you read my wrong. I agree we should be able to do more than any 3rd world nation in supplying health care to our citizens. If we had this health care bill many who could not afford it, it would be free or so cheap as to almost be free . But if everyone got medical and there isn’t a big push to get more doctors and hospitals etc built then the existing doctors would seem like too little. And many people will be afraid that what they get will have to say “they didn’t do it quite right”, and not be able to sue maybe if there was a mistake made. Which in turn make many feel they do not want to thin out the service because the service they are getting maybe less or lesser in quality than it is. Which is what I see, my opinion.

@westy81585 ,That’s twice that you have told me that I don’t know what I’m talking about, why don’t you make it a trifecta, I know who Glenn Beck is but don’t have the time to listen on a regular basis,i don’t follow anyone but my own conscience, as far as Obama being bipartisan, that’s a joke!!!! Any meaningful meetings on health care reform has been behind closed doors without any republicans present, what a joke! I’ll broadcast it on C-Span,,HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I’m still waiting.Tell you what if you here about a negotiations on health care being televised please let me know, until then maybe you should get Obama’s genitals out of your mouth!

@Mandomike Obama and the Democrats tried to work with Republicans for the entire summer, all the way into October and November. They tried adding in Republican ideas, and courting Republicans to find out what would need to change from the base plan to get them to vote for it. From the beginning all the Republicans did was say “we need to slow this down”, “we need to scrap this and start over” , “this will be Obama’s Waterloo” .... For every hand out to a Republican senator, the Democrats got another Republican leader claiming the health care bill was going to kill grandma and make death panels. The only thing Republicans want to do is kill whatever Obama wants to do, because they see him failing as them winning…. Even though they’re screwing all of us over to do so. He could make the cure for cancer, and they would complain about the color of the pill.

If Obama didn’t want to be bipartisan, then healthcare would have passed thru reconciliation back in August, and we wouldn’t be arguing about this.

Furthermore, the negotiations didn’t go behind closed doors until Novemeber, after 3–4 months of Republicans continuously holding up the process by simple procedure crap, like making the paige have to read the ENTIRE bill word for word. Did you not see this bill go thru committee? That was on C-Span. Or it moving through the house? On C-Span. The Senate? You bet, on C-Span. Frankly, I wouldn’t give them any more chances to delay important health reform that would benefit ALL Americans simply to try and make Obama look bad. So if they want to keep it off the airwaves for committee for the sake of not letting Republicans drag it out for another month, then they have my total support.

Honestly, this loss in Massachusetts may be a blessing in disguise, because maybe now the Democrats will grow a pair and just use reconciliation, like Bush and the Republicans did frequently when they lacked a super majority.

I’m sorry, but it’s just not acceptable for anybody on either side of this debate to be talking about “taking genitals out of your mouth”. Shameful. Be adults!

And again—a challenge to anyone who is adamantly opposed to the current bills: what is your proposal?? Are you defending the status quo?

Ok so we need to manage the cost of health care… but NOT destroy completely the system we have now… and NOT turn it over to the government… And NOT to be controlled by the government! Liberals are whiny about spending money on their or theirs health… I know if my mother or father were sick or dying… I would give anything to make them whole again.

@HasntBeen I concur….we are Flutherites not ABers or YAers…..we should be better than that :-)

@Tomfafa : you’re fingerpointing and ranting about “them”. That’s “blamestorming”, not creative thinking. What is your proposal to solve the problems?? Specific, tangible ideas—things that can actually be implemented?

Every thoughtful person is sick to death of hearing the liberals and the conservatives bash each other and call names like a bunch of high-school cheerleaders from opposite sides of the field. That’s adolescent thinking. What we need are adults: people who can think for themselves and focus on the problem rather than merely trying to find the villain.

So again: the plan. What is the plan?? It’s all about ideas that are practical.