quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Despite the good face Democrats are putting on it now, health care reform is all but dead. Back to the status quo.

Trouble is...the status quo is spiraling health care costs, more companies dropping coverage, more people dropped from their coverage when its needed most, more inability to get coverage with some conditions...all while medicaid/medicare is rapidly approaching a far worse crisis than social security, with no political will to fix either. Massachusetts has universal care, but with states strapped for cash themselves, their likely to remain alone in that distinction.

Meanwhile, we continue on with a structural deficit exacerbated by a decade with revenue cuts, two elective wars (one to chase Osama bin Laden unsuccessfully in Afghanistan, the other to find weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist in Iraq) that will continue draining the treasury for at least a decade, while we only begin a tentative climb out of recession.

I knew Obama's progressive agenda was over when the credit crisis hit before he even took office. And while I give him B- marks for muddling through, it's nothing approaching strong leadership, and his term in office will now be much more about Haiti (where he did step up quickly) than health care. Democrats, realizing the president has no coattails, will keep their heads down too.

Republicans have no interest in solving any of this either. Their entire focus was to kill health care and now to take back power. They'll likely gain seats in November, perhaps even several. And it will change nothing but who snips at whom.

People talk of alternative parties--but it's all talk. No one has any serious new approaches or solutions going forward, just a feeling to throw the bums out, and then start again with different names in the same old story.

We can't afford this. We're ignoring solvable problems--painful to solve, granted, but solvable. They are only going to balloon rapidly while we continue to pretend they don't exist. Our own inaction, not terrorism, is what will bring us down.

So the bill is dead. Now what?

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ORIGINAL: subtee

Do you think that it would be meaningful for Dems to reject the health care "reform" as it stands? What if they voted it down and articulated, cohesively, that this is not what they intended, nor what they promised and therefore they will not vote for it? [Assuming they could accomplish such a thing?]

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

Jeff, any revolution we get in this country will not be one the left (or people who hold some of the values they like to proclaim they have) would be very happy with the outcome of.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


They'll obviously just print or borrow more, rather than lower their own standards.
Democrats propose $1.9T increase in debt limit

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ORIGINAL: DomImus

It just occurred to me this morning on my way home that I haven't seen an Obama bumper sticker on a car in months. There were quite a lot of folks sporting them about a year ago. Surely some folks bought new cars during the Cash for Clunkers scam but I can't remember the last time I saw an Obama bumper sticker and I drive the same roads with seemingly many of the same locals. I still see Bush/Cheney and W bumper stickers and some McCain/Palin ones.

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ORIGINAL: Thadius

I remember the messages I received during the last election cycle, about how I was wasting my vote by not voting for a D or an R. It seems the pendulum is finally swinging and folks are realizing that both parties represent the exact same thing, gaining more power and influence (not to mention money) for their financial backers and themselves; we the people be damned.

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

Jeff, any revolution we get in this country will not be one the left (or people who hold some of the values they like to proclaim they have) would be very happy with the outcome of.

It's really interesting how some conservatives are making veiled threats at revolution because they don't have their party in power while they were calling the slightest criticism of Bush or his policies, especially in Iraq, un-American and even treasonous.