Bye Bye Public Option Dreamers

There are not enough votes for a “public option” because… well, just because they aren’t there.
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Has THAT excuse changed AT ALL throughout all of this?

Put the d@mned option on the table and let EVERYONE vote on it!!! Not a hard concept.
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Stop this “death by imperial proclamation” horsecrap!

Kate Pickert:
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What does “the Senate is whipping against it” mean?

Agree with afguy-put it to a vote.

Who is Nancy Pelosi, America’s Coroner? Things that aren’t dead get declared dead all the time by people who are… wrong, that’s all. Big deal.

Stu,
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Check out Glenn Greenwald (link).

It’s not an excuse, @afguy, it’s a reality. If Lloyd Doggett votes for this bill, or a ‘public option’ bill, he’s kitty litter surrounding the ballot box. He’s a Democrat in a very fiscally conservative area of Texas, and I’m not the only one who will vote him down if he supports this. Many of his Democrat supporters in the area are small business owners who are already seeing the extortion being floated — such as part-time employee penalties — to make this bill fly.

Alan Grayson is working on a bill to bring it to a vote.
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It’s almost like they’re trying to “short-circuit” the process BEFORE things get that far.
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I think they’re actually terrified of that happening. They lose control and have to find ways then to make it work.

Well, then, dwilde1, let’s bring it to a vote and find out and stop relying on a variety of folks (including yourself) that tell us how EVERYONE is going to vote.

Just noticed something, dwilde1.
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I was talking about bringing the “public option” to a vote. You disagreed with me over a vote on the present bill. Which, incidentally, I don’t like in its present form. I have my doubts that they’ll EVER get up the courage to actually make the needed improvements.
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Did you intend to shift the discussion?

hellslittle angel,
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It’s not just her.
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“Harry Baby” has given us the ol’ “votes just aren’t there” dance from the beginning.
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Right now, it looks like the Senate leadership is working rather hard to make that prophecy come true.
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See Glenn Greenwald’s article today.

Greenwald nails it (linked by afguy @ 2.1):
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(I)t seems there aren’t enough Senate Democrats willing to vote against the public option after publicly saying all year long they supported it, which means it might get 50 votes if a roll call vote is held. So what is the Senate Democratic leadership now doing? They’re whipping against the public option, which they pretended all year along to so vigorously support.
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(…)
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If… a majority of Congressional Democrats and the White House all support a public option, why would they possibly whip against it, and ensure its rejection, at exactly the moment when it finally became possible to pass it?
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(…)
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(The 60 vote filibuster rule) is the excuse Democrats fraudulently invoke… to refuse to pass what they claim they support but are politically afraid to pass, or which they actually oppose (sorry, we’d so love to do this, but gosh darn it, we just can’t get 60 votes). If only 50 votes were required, they’d just find ways to ensure they lacked 50.

So, Kate Pickert, got a question…
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Rather than just reporting that Pelosi says “it’s dead” (without elaboration), why didn’t you dig a little deeper and tell us that Grayson has a bill to bring it to a vote (with 30+ sponsors) and also report that the Senate leadership is working VERY HARD to prevent it from being included in the reconciliation?
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You know… do some of that “reporter stuff”…
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If a “public option” is just so d@mned unpopular with all of us “regular” folks out here, why is so much effort being expended to keep it from actually being considered as an “official” proposal?
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Heaven knows, there’s been enough “insurance industry friendly” sh!t thrown out there for consideration…

I wonder how a robust public option would fare in a national referendum. I know, I know, it isn’t how we do things but I bet something like “Medicare for all, yay or nay?” would do very well among the people.

afguy thank you for the link to Glenn. He confirms my thoughts on this. Karen posted months ago that the Public Option was the throw away and not ever supposed to happen.

Problem was that the Public Option was popular and polled high even after the summer blowout. Now they want to pass a bill that is not popular, with fixes that do not include the option that also has more health cost savings.

I tried to link to Grayson’s bill on three different posts in the last few days and my comment seemed to go into moderation. Not a public option one, but the four page Medicare for all bill. Link was on MyDD. That isn’t going to happen either.

If they really wanted a public option they shouldn’t have crafted a 2700 page piece of crap.

THEY didn’t, sechandler… that’s EXACTLY our point here.
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It’s presently a bonanza for the insurers (mandate) with some piecemeal improvements in the status quo.
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But, of course, with “substantial” improvements to be enacted down the road… they promise…

Public option is but one component of this tangled web of deceit. The harder I works, the worser it gets! This bill is a hodge podge of ill defined policy and it leaks like a punctured bucket. They can do MUCH better and they know it. Why anyone would insist on ramming it down our throats, is completely beyond my comprehension. (unless it is VICTORY, at ANY cost!) I suggest that each of you poll your own personal physician and ask for their sentiments on this bill. I am on the staff of a large, teaching hospital and 90% of us oppose this bill, 8% are lukewarm and only 2% favor. (show of hands at our last staff meeting) I have a news flash for you….unless your physician base buys into this plan, it is NOT going to work. That prospect can only be thwarted by a complete government take over of health care and then, my friends, your problems really start to compound.

But why leave it in the trash OUTSIDE the negotiation room, BEFORE you even start talking?

@afguy: because in the end it’s our politicians who don’t want it. They never did. Because the insurance industry doesn’t want it. And that’s really all there is to it. They’d like to act like they tried but they didn’t really. Their masters in the industry told them to create a plan where everyone by law has to buy private insurance and where there’d be no public option. And our leaders delivered.

Can only speak for myself, earljr, but I don’t have a “personal physician”. A clinic visit when I have problems is about the best I can manage.
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General practitioners are almost an extinct species here in West Ky. The town 15 miles away lost one of their last remaining ones when her “work visa” wasn’t renewed. Get that? A town in the heartland of the USA was relying on a “furriner” for their health care.
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Earljr, your posting sounds an awful lot like “We got ours, we ain’t giving any of it up – screw the rest of you”.
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Exactly what do you and your fellow “caring caregivers” have to offer as a solution to this? Sounds like the status quo to me…

Eh. I’ve heard reform declared dead too many times. All this kremlinology has just become absurd.

This development is astounding. If they manage to pass some sort of HCR bill, the Dems will have both:
(a) fired up the right to vote Dems out of office *for* passing HCR, and
(b) disenchanted the base for having thrown the PO under the bus.
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Best of both worlds…not.

@destor: Oh, I know that. A lot of the “questions” are rhetorical in nature, I assure you…

That’s the Third Way!

earljr1- a public option is not a “component of this tangled web of deceit.” You’re failing to distinguish between the current bill (well described, I think, by afguy: “a bonanza for the insurers [mandate] with some piecemeal improvements in the status quo.”) and a bill that would include one.
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As far as physicians, the New England Journal of Medicine (link) and the Union of American Physicians & Dentists (link) showed 73% and 80% of physicians polled favor a public option, respectively.

kbang: I’d like to see both “leaders” voted out of office over this, to be replaced by someone a little more responsive.
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Wonder if they’d get the message then… I’m past the point of voting for a “breather with a heartbeat” simply because they have a “D” after their name. That’s Rahm/DSCC philosophy.
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Problem is, it’s gotten to the place where even campaign speeches or stated positions are meaningless after they get into office. How many signed pledges and then changed clearly-pledged votes? Once they get a whiff of the ol’ “K-Street feeding trough”, something happens.

afguy, thx for the Greenwald link. I have about decided now that I need to just bookmark it.
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Individual mandate, big money insurance industry, no single payer, no public option, no reform.
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afguy, I also noticed your comment regarding going to a clinic for hc, and I assume you are covered by the military coverage. The other day I listened in on a telephone town hall meeting by my own right wing US Rep. and it was all talk of socialized hc, with the exception of promises to fix deficiencies in the military hc system. Although I can guess what the response would be if I pointed out a discrepancy in right wing dogma, I still can’t reconcile it in my mind.

We advocate change, afguy, but “meaningful” change, thoughtfully prepared. Insurance company reform, competitive drug pricing (Obama sold you out on that one) tort reform and since you mentioned it, more scholarship money for medical students, willing to accept that money in exchange for agreeing to practice in rural locations. A number of meaningful changes that will only IMPROVE the best health care system in the world. As far as your “we got ours” comment, 70% of the patients we see at our hospital are “charity” patients. I did eight operations yesterday, ALL on charity patients. And speaking of that, my next patient is being prepped, so I have to go. Trust me, afguy, most of us are in this business because we LIKE helping people. We are not nearly as mercenary as you think.

formerly,
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I do have military coverage under Tricare. It does help. Esp. for prescriptions at places like WalMart. The cost between having that and not can be staggering for the same prescription.
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However, when I get anything done, I honestly don’t know how much it’s gonna cost when I finally get the bill until it arrives. After the wars started, the discounts got a LOT better. It was almost like the drug companies felt guilty about gouging military, either AD or retired.
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I have a FSA through the school where I work. Seems to work best because, if I had insurance, they would just bill Tricare to pay everything. At least this will pay most of my out-of-pocket med bills. If I get truly sick, though, all bets are off.
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Having teen-age kids at my age does complicate matters. I should be enjoying the “golden years”, not arguing with bone-headed teenage boys and looking for colleges for them to attend.
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I stay clear of the VA clinics. Too much of a wait.
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Military clincs aren’t an option – most of the doctors there are civilians who contract. Ft. Campbell is just too burdened with care for their own soldiers to offer much to the retirees in the area.

Problem is, it’s gotten to the place where even campaign speeches or stated positions are meaningless after they get into office. -afguy
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See Greenwald from Thursday (link):
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That’s the same mindset that led Democrats to pretend to want to end the Iraq War so that they could win the 2006 mid-term election by exploiting anti-war sentiment, but then, once they won, continue to fund the war without limits or conditions because they were politically afraid to follow through on their alleged convictions…
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When running for President, Barack Obama emphatically pledged again and again to overturn — not continue — the Bush/Cheney template on Terrorism and civil liberties. He railed against the notion that we need to abandon our “values” (due process, the rule of law, civilian courts, habeas corpus, transparency) in order to stay safe. And he won — resoundingly.

Yet from the start, he takes a half-step forward in that direction followed by two fearful steps back.

Commenters:
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I think it’s important to listen to (credible) opposing voices on the left when it comes to controversies like this.
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Here’s (a Pass Anything Now Supporter) Chris Bowers on why Greenwald is wrong, and Senate Democrats are trying to kill any chance of voting on a public option because they’re probably acting in good faith to get HCR passed (link to “The Proof Isn’t There Yet”):

…in theory, there should be plenty of votes to pass a public option through reconciliation. This is especially the case if an opt-out, negotiated rates public option was included in the bill sent to the Senate floor–something which Harry Reid did back in 2009. So, why doesn’t it appear that Senate Democrats will pass a reconciliation bill with a negotiated rates public option?
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Glenn Greenwald argues this is an example of bad faith. Senators Dick Durbin’s office claims they are not going to allow any amendments to the bill the House sends them, but would whip for a bill that included a negotiated rates public option. The basic idea is that they don’t want to blow up any deals on votes once the bill reaches the floor, and they don’t want to give Republicans an opening to filibuster the bill through endless series of amendments.
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While I am well aware that the White House is not pushing for the public option at all, I am still not willing to call it bad faith just yet. This is because no one has proven that there are 216 votes in the House for a reconciliation “fix” to the Senate health reform bill that includes a negotiated rates public option. There were 220 proven votes in the House back in November, but since that time three “yes” votes are no longer around, and an undetermined group of Stupak voters has also been lost.
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Until someone proves that the House has 216 for a reconciliation fix with a public option, then the argument coming out of Durbin’s office cannot be disproven. Adding a public option to the reconciliation bill in the Senate might well blow up a deal with the House, and cause the package to go down. This is especially given that in order to pass the bill, House leaders are going to have to cull about a dozen votes from the 37 remaining Democrats who voted “no” in November.

Without going into what these secret Democratic “deals” that might “blow up” could contain (groan), does Bowers have a point?
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Does allowing now for the possibility of a public option amendment to a Reconciliation bill reduce the pool of available Democrats to make up the 9 that Pelosi needs to get to 216 down to where it threatens passage?
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Is that credible, given the likelihood of the 37 Dems who voted “No” on the House’s HCR in the first place changing their vote when it comes to the House passing the Senate bill as is?
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Could 9 votes be found in the House if a public option were to be promised to be introduced as an amendment to Reconciliation in the Senate?
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Are Bowers’ arguments air-tight?

Well, then you need to consider your comments more carefully, because “mercenary” is just how you sounded.
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As for drug pricing. even right now, there’s a gulf between the price I would pay if I wasn’t ex-military and the price I do.
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I know, because I have forgotten to tell them on occasion that I was Tricare and got a pickup bill of $192 on something. After Tricare: $3.
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That’s not necessarily a pricing reform issue but indicates something else.
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WHY the BIG difference?

Don’t be too sad neoCommies. This legislation will effectively kill private insurers and subsequently finish off our capitalist economy and your grandparents!
Have you seen Congressman Mike Rogers’ video?

stu,
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Is it possible that the leadership has become “just too clever for their own good” on this?
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That there is so much triangulation/calculus/interlinking deals involved that they don’t really know what’s happening any more?

By referring to “Section 141 of the Health Choices Commissioner Act,” Congressman Mike Rogers is referencing the House bill, H.R.. 3200 (link to the House bill), which isn’t actually under consideration at this point, since the House is being told to pass the Senate bill as is.
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Either you or Rep. Mike Rogers are being disingenuous by bringing up a bill that isn’t even part of the debate, regardless of whether or not the section means what you both say it means.
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If H.R. 3200 were under consideration, why would we be having this discussion of the public option being added in a Reconciliation bill, since the House bill actually contains one?
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There’s plenty enough to oppose about this legislation without misleading folks as to what’s actually being discussed. Do you ever get tired of lying to your fellow Americans?

Watched it. Heard NO suggestions as to how we could “do better”. Seems he just wants to stop everything.
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As for my grandparents, they’re dead already… and my parents. I’m more concerned about my kids having a viable country and economy to live in.
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As for killing capitalism… seems the “financiers” among us did a pretty good job of trying to do that as soon as we stopped looking over their shoulders, to let the “markets” reign supreme.
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How’d THAT work out, by the way? Still waiting for that “invisible hand” to start working its magic…

afguy:
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I’ll let one of Bowers’ commenters take that on:

No one’s acting in bad faith, huh?
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White House: We’ll fight for the PO if the Senate votes on it.
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White House: Sadly the votes aren’t there.
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Durbin: I’m going to have to urge liberals in the Senate to vote against the PO (but but but I thought the votes weren’t there?)
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Pelosi: Sadly the PO isn’t in the House bill, because the votes aren’t there in the Senate.
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Bowers: Although I fancy myself a legislative expert, I seem not to understand that the votes will never be there for the PO until the leadership fights for it and it’s put to a vote, and I’ll go so far to claim it’s the job of outside groups to prove the votes are there.
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Call it bad faith, call it cowardice, whatever.
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I’ve never though the PO was the end all-be all, but I’m sick of the shell game.
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All this makes me a little less hostile to Lieberman ’cause at least his opposition to the PO was upfront.

Come on Stuart. Richardo doesn’t need to be accurate. He was able to use his “neoCommies” line and say the HC reform is an attack on capitalism and grandma– success! Only losers fact-check.

ah, afguy, you are your usual, irascible self. Sorry my commentary was not worded the way you wish, but my sentiments are the same. This bill, as it stands, spells BIG trouble for the American public. You think your service is lousy now? It can get worse, MUCH worse, I assure you.

Then I take it your position is that we do NOTHING concrete now (to prevent things from possibly getting worse)?
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And what’s gonna happen if we just keep things as is? Are they gonna get better? Why?
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What’s on the horizon that will make improvements? Any proposals from your side of the political spectrum?
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Tax cuts? For whom? What kinds? Capital gains tax cuts? Cut in Estate taxes? Guaranteed to be spent to make a better healthcare system? Or, because this is a “free country”, do we just HOPE those cuts go toward improving the system (with no guarantee they’ll actually be used for that)?
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Vouchers for health care insurance that many couldn’t afford anyway – even WITH the help? That would be a BIG help – to the insurance companies, and to those with financial interests in them. All with government money.
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Stop coverage refusals for “prior conditions”? Sounds good. What’s the catch? We’ll insure you – just for premiums the size of a 3rd world country’s GNP. True, you didn’t ACTUALLY refuse to do it – I just can’t ACTUALLY afford it. But the ins. co’s hands are “clean” I guess…
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Higher deductibles to discourage over-use of health care, so more out-of-pocket expenses for those of us without a whole lot of extra money to spend anyway? makes sense – if over-use of services is actually the problem. (Why is Japan cheaper with greater per use of services than we do?)
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Prescription drug reform to allow negotiation of prices? Why don’t we have that already? Why do I pay less by a factor of 64 on many items with Tricare than without it?

Kate doesn’t appear to believe in real reporting any more than JokeLine does. Yesterday, she swallowed the anonymous Republican FUD about what the Senate parliamentarian supposedly said hook, line, and sinker, and today Congressional Quarterly, who actually does real reporting, quoted the parliamentarian himself clearly contradicting the Republican FUD.
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Kate could have called him up herself yesterday, if she were a real reporter.

70% of the patients we see at our hospital are “charity” patients.
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You know, earljr, this makes sense from a practical perspective, working at a teaching hospital as you do.
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You keep your operating skills up by actually operating. Pilots are evaluated periodically in a flight simulator. Don’t think there’s such a thing as a realistic “surgery simulator”.
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Imagine, if ALL you treated at your hospital were those with good insurance. They would be, by definition, relatively well off and therefore NOT in need of care as often as the others. Therefore, not as much need for treatments (or surgeries). And not enough going on to keep everyone’s hand in the game.
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Charity cases, however, have a number of deficiencies, including, of course, no money. Lack of money equals malnourishment (and lack of other health maintenance actions) in many cases, so you get to see (and operate on) patients suffering from a variety of health problems not associated with the wealthy, in some cases, almost like those in a 3rd world country. You get to widen your surgical experiences.
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And there’s enough to keep the interns busy too.
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I imagine the use of charity cases is as much a result of the need to have a ready supply of patients to be used in the ongoing instructional process as it is from any altruistic policies on the part of the hospital administration.
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But it does make for a good PR point, I’ll admit.

Nope, we DO need changes (see 14) but in a thoughtful, systematic way. This hell bent, go for broke mentality is simply insane. In medicine we are taught to assess and then react. I don’t think we see this, as this bill currently stands. The WIDE variance in drug pricing you describe, is all too common, yet Obama makes a deal with big Pharma, so competitive pricing is off the table. What other kind of deals have been made? No one knows until you start unwrapping this package. Call it what it is….a pig in a poke! SCRAP this monstrosity and start over….the American public deserves no less.

First of all, I am a trauma surgeon, so most of my patients are accident victims, gun shot wounds and numerous other acts of violence you typically encounter on the street. The important point, afguy, is that we perform a very vital service. Our charity patients receive the best we have to offer and we DO NOT differentiate once they are on that table. Do I teach medical students and Interns? Of course I do, but I would be just as likely to provide that SAME instruction, while caring for a private patient. What we do, afguy, on a daily basis, is NOT being done for P.R. purposes. It is to serve our community and its citizens.

People – pls stop fighting with one another. Everyone feels screwed by someone in DC – let’s look for commonality and stop the harranguing (sp?) Anyway,THIS is why I am a teapartier. Because we’ve gotten screwed by BOTH SIDES. Why would you guys — either side — want these IDIOTS and powerbrokers in control of ANYTHING???? Here’s the teapartiers’ truth!!!!!!! This is what happens. Get Feds out of it, go back to your States, start them living within their means, take back your communities, pool your resources, develop your skills, get a community that someone WANTS to doctor in, and make a deal. Find the strength within the sound of your voice to make a difference. DC’s DEAD. You all are codependents and I’m referring you to a good recovery group.

sechandler,
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Highways here are falling apart right now because of a series of snow storms. Infrastructure was almost destroyed by the ice storm that hit last winter – a one in a hundred years occurrence.
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We would still be trying to repair telephone and power poles and restore power if the fed govt and states from all over the Southeast hadn’t stepped in to help.
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Our main employer in the area was a nuclear processing plant which has been trying to clean up the mess left behind and there are NO major employers moving back in to replace it.
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How are we going to attract a doctor if we can’t afford to keep up the streets? Just let them go to pot? Why would a doctor want to move somewhere with poorly maintained infrastructure and no job base? How about the highways? SInce, as you state, we should get rid of the Feds, should we just let them go to pot, giving industry even less reason to move in?
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How about fire department and schools? Colleges? Just let them close if you can’t fund them with what you can throw together in the community or state? Then what?
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Watch the History Channel sometime and the series called “Life After People”. What you would see would look very much that except it would be accelerated by the lack of central government involvement in the infrastructure (and our continued wear and tear on it).
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I take it you’re in an area with few bridges or roads with wear problems. Count yourself lucky. I doubt you’re ready to walk everywhere you have to go because the roads are impassible.
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Government in and of itself isn’t the problem. It’s the occupants who abuse it for their own ends and the ones who want to prove that it doesn’t work by trying as little as possible to make it so.
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Don’t like how it’s being run? Throw out the ones who aren’t doing what they should be.
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This country can’t exist without some government involvement, unless you and everyone else are prepared to raise all of their own food and make all your own clothing. And also, to disgnose and treat everyone when the next cholera epidemic rolls through because of a lack of comprehensive health services.

Earl,
This isn’t brain surgery.
Although I deeply respect what you do, you do not have the option of going back into a patient again and again saying “oops we forgot to… we didn’t get around to… we didn’t have the votes to.”
Congress can and ALWAYS DOES.

Civil rights: one hundred years of legislation very slowly putting things together.

Social Security: Still being altered after seventy five or so years.

Being both uninsured and healthy, the last time I spoke with a doctor about this was when I saw my cousin doing his residency in pediatric gastroenterology. He was eager for health care reform.

No, he has not yet dealt with insurance payments as you have, so, I can not answer to how doctors feel about tort reform. I can tell you, however, that my results were doctors were 100% for health care reform.

It seems to me like this bill will do one thing very successfully: make Americans say, “hey, that wasn’t so bad!”

Then, like civil rights, social security, the veteran’s administration – you name it – it will whet the public’s appetite for more reforms.

People like you have to get it done once, get it done perfectly and not go back in again.

Government you push for something, you compromise, you get one third of what you want. Next you get another one third of what you want.

Later, you get up to 90% of what you want.

Then the public and congress looses all interest and quits for a few more years.

Ricardo is unaware that even GWB’s wife proudly worked for a “neocommie” organization.
They gave away government financed products, they obtained private information about the people who were taking out these products and, with very few exceptions, it wiped out the competition completely.
It is called a LIBRARY! Or as GWB would Lie berry.

So, if the Post Office, public libraries and (since they were originally private organizations in England) publicly owned fire departments haven’t made us into a Stalinist nightmare with evil commies like Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, then why even bring up this concept with health care?

The public option would, if it gets in there, show the nation that like fire departments, schools, libraries and post offices, health care management is best done on a non-profit government supervised or government owed organization.

If experiences around the world are all wrong, then the public option will not be chosen. (But that seems absurdly improbable when the numbers are figured out.)

Afguy – you’ve got it. You know where it’s at.

sechandler912,

First, amusingly, the actual Boston Tea Party was done by tea smugglers who were upset that they would not make as much money because the tea tax had gone slightly down at that moment. (Empire, by Niles Ferguson).

Second, libertarians conservatives and tea partiers have to sit down and read history.

Most of these anti-government theories by extreme fiscal conservatives, libertarians and tea partiers (I believe that you are a quasi-religious version of a libertarian if I defined you correctly). have their cause and effect reversed.

In the 1800s people were starving and stealing for food in the major cities across the United States. First at a city level, next at a state level and, as each had trouble fulfilling such needs, at a federal level.

Your people reversed cause and effect.

In rural America it was hard to get goods, services and people back and forth. It took three months in the 1930s for the US Army to cross from Washington to California, as an example.
We built highways.

Sure, there are more than just a few imperfections in absolutely every government agency at the Federal, state and local level, but, none of these have ever been anywhere near as bad as the problems they were there to remove.

Crime in America’s largest city, New York, is lower than it has been since statics were ever taken. The concept of stealing for food is laughable here, even though there are poor here amongst the incredibly wealthy.

The Tea Party concept is based upon a kindergartner’s view of history. Some of you lack the education to know better but most of you ignore everything you were taught obsessed with your ideals the way Tea Party nut Joe Stack was. Your group includes American Jihadists and are a bigger threat than any member of either party could ever be to this country.

It’s great to wind up you neoCommies. As you well know either bill has the intention of govt .takeover of health care. Why be dishonest? Why have 2,000 pages plus of legislation time after time and not let the public read it or give anyone a chance to understand the implications? It is NOT about health care but about takover and control of a large sector of our economy and control over the American people. Conservatives and Republicans have offered reasonable practical solutions time after time but they are ignored by the left wing state run media.
Advertised pricing of health services, tort reform ( an anathema to the liberal left supported by trial lawyers), portability, removal of state boundaries, etc etc etc…. None of which involve the corrupt, inept, and incompetent federal govt.
I assume that the few anti-Americans constantly posting here all day long have no jobs other than to act as propagandists for the left wing coup. You shall be defeated and America will regain her pride and her liberties, no thanks to you all.

Retardamax,

The legislation is being rewritten as we type.

Earlier forms of the bill are available online, so, if you weren’t, unfortunately, functionally illiterate and relying on Fox News for all of your information, you could read as much of it as you like by going into Google with the Search Words “Health Care Reform Bill Text”.

Choosing your own health care provider including Medicare (to be known as the public option) is not taking over anything specific.

Republicans very briefly and disingenuously put out a few concepts which were unlikely to increase coverage for anybody at all.

“Anti-American”?

Retardamax, what does that mean?

Are you saying that we live in the United States and want our own homes and communities worse off?

We all know that, if there is a profit to be made that letting schools, roads and cities fall apart while citizens who are uninsured grow more and more ill in exchange for a tax cut for the very wealthy is the Republican Party Platform. Republicans are the Anti-American Party.

Although there are a couple of retirees who worked harder in their lives than you will ever work and students here who are learning more than you will ever know, the vast majority of us are working and many of us either are or soon will be earning far more than you.

Republican hearts bleed when the wealthy and powerful loose money in a lawsuit where damages are won from true wrong doing on the part of the company or individual. Tort reform has been nothing but a sham attempting to limit damages on real pain and suffering shown to be true by a court of law before a jury of their peers while it has offered nothing to handle nuisance lawsuits.

Why do Republicans never find a way to call the government “corrupt, inept, and incompetent” when some raving lunatic from your own party wants to invade the wrong country, divide our forces in half to fight a country totally uninvolved and give billions and billions of dollars in tax payer money to his vice president’s former company (which is doing business with Iran) in secret deals to go from oil exploration to feeding soldiers who already had their own cooks?

“America will regain her pride” when jobs bills help create new jobs, and health care will be available to all who are ill, no thanks to you and your fellow right wingers.

Earl,

Thinking of your analogy, have you ever worked on one patient with 500 other doctors with none of them directly in charge of one another?

I am so glad that medicine, being a totally different specialty, does not work like legislative government. If there were 500 doctors all reaching in doing what they feel is best, John McCain would want to take out my heart (we all know that conservatives don’t like that) Denis Kusinich would want to take out my stomach, (since he doesn’t have the stomach for war he wouldn’t think that I should have one) and I just fear what Larry Craig would do to me.

Although this is not anything I have been involved with, it seems more like the process of writing a book. You have a first draft, a second draft and, long afterward, you have the final novel.

Much work needs to be done to rewrite this bill over time, but, if it does something good, then more will get done.

Look at the New Deal.
Almost all of it started out mediocre and got changed, altered, had new agencies which were started complete removed… It was like watching a book being written. I only bring that up since that particular time in history I have read and watched the most about, but, you could go onwards to the Great Society and many other times and find the same pattern of the first version of things being mediocre and other versions (sometimes with Republicans being helpful rather than just partisan – especially the Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford Administrations being far more bipartisan).

By your concept of dealing with experts in the field, the American Bar Association vehemently opposes Republican proposals for Tort Reform. If we take a doctor’s work on health care reform over that of an outsider, we should, logically, take the ABA’s stand above that of non-attorneys, shouldn’t we?

I hope something can be done about tort reform, but, I am not sure what can be done and find it a side issue.

patrick, it is obvious that you have strong feelings about this issue and I commend your ardor. Too bad you are not a conservative, we could use your passion in these debates. I simply do not understand the rush, patrick, to pass deeply flawed legislation. Democrats admit it is a leaky bucket and the flaws are glaringly apparent. If everyone took a non partisan look, it could be fixed. This mentality of I’m NOT going to fix it, because the other side wants it, will spill over and NOTHING gets accomplished. That being the case, we are STUCK with this monstrosity and it has the potential of doing serious damage to our health delivery system. Do I trust congress to fix it once it has passed? That, sir, is a resounding NO!

This is no news.

It is incumbent on Pelosi and other Obama folk to keep this bill moving.
If she starts looking back and issues which to all intents and purposes that have been asked and answered, then she would be contributing to the quagmire and complexity with which this bill has been plagued for a long while.

I got an opportunity to watch an interview with Pelosi and I think that she is as focused as Obama on this Healthcare reform.
Now, if they can bring together their fractured self serving colleagues things will start looking better. I really want Healthcare overhauled despite the trickery of these old boy club Republican fellows.

I will get a tremendous kick if the public rejects, for once, the lies they are being sold and start asking the really pertinent and strong questions about this proposed overhaul.

Healthcare is broken and needs to be fixed soon.

LM
http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/technology-savvy-nigerian-criminals-are-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

“Too bad you are not a conservative, we could use your passion in these debates.”

Conservatives definitely seem passionate about this and many other conservative issues, with you as an exception, however, most of them grab onto a random words and phrases such as “capitalism”, “Family values”, “Socialism”, “our founding fathers” among others making terrible arguments.

One fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives are more concerned about government making errors than individuals not working for a particular common interest not taking any action towards a common goal.

For you, as an ER surgeon, you have a very benevolent goal that the specific individual in front of you gets the best you can possibly deliver, however, that has no impact on health care over all. I would not say that you are not working towards a goal every single day.

Also, remember that this blog is nearly all progressive people. I am sure you know that if you wanted to find like minded people, you could find another place.

I appreciate that you are not somebody who wants to exclusively see like minded people and that you bring intelligent challenges into this blog.