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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Panda,

The way to do this well would have been to start from scratch with a single payer program. That just was never going to happen.

All we can do is move the ball down the field. Even flawed, better than continuing to ignore the problem.

And it's easier to adjust than to create. If we don't get this, we'll have nothing. Again. For decades more.

Logrolling is how things are done legislatively. It's annoying, but it's reality.

I know you disagree. But here we are.

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ORIGINAL: servantforuse

This bill is to big and way to costly. If the dems couldn't ram it through with their super majority, it won't go through now.

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ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Panda,

The way to do this well would have been to start from scratch with a single payer program. That just was never going to happen.

All we can do is move the ball down the field. Even flawed, better than continuing to ignore the problem.

And it's easier to adjust than to create. If we don't get this, we'll have nothing. Again. For decades more.

Logrolling is how things are done legislatively. It's annoying, but it's reality.

I know you disagree. But here we are.

Actually, Tim, I don't disagree. We are where we are, and this is the reality of the present circumstance. The dems have no choice but to ram it through by any means possible, and I support almost any imaginable strategy by which they might try to accomplish that. Whatever the consequences. They're taking losses this November anyway; might as well go down fighting for what you were elected to do.

The problem I have is twofold. First of all, I don't believe it will  work. The republicans have all the momentum now, and they're going to fight like a pack of rabid wolves. From what I've seen of the Obama team and the democratic congressional leadership over the last year, I don't believe they have the brains to outmaneuver the republicans on this or the balls to brazen it through in the face of the opposition the republicans will mount.

The second problem I have with it is that it never needed to come to this. This is the end result of a year of appallingly incompetent leadership, particularly on the part of Obama, but really by the entire democratic party leadership in Washington. They made one mistake after another, and every blunder they made allowed them to be backed a little bit further into the corner where we now find ourselves - with this absolute catastrophe of a "bill" as not just our best option, but our  only option to move this country in the general direction of a civilized society. It never needed to be like this, and many of us will live the rest of our lives with the disastrous results of this complete and utter failure of leadership.

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ORIGINAL: truckinslave

If the Dims pass this misusing reconciliation, without Republican support, there will literally be people in the streets with pitchforks, leading to (almost all) Republican primaries and races featuring at least one candidate repeatedly taking an oath to make repeal/de-funding of StealthCare their number one prioroity. Leading to Republican majorities in the House and maybe even the Senate, leading to the death of this awful, and awfully unpopular, bill.
Which I don't think will pass the House, anyway, unless "Obama's aides" have sense enough to water it down to nothing. Which he/they don't.

quote:

ORIGINAL: truckinslave

If the Dims pass this misusing reconciliation, without Republican support, there will literally be people in the streets with pitchforks, leading to (almost all) Republican primaries and races featuring at least one candidate repeatedly taking an oath to make repeal/de-funding of StealthCare their number one prioroity. Leading to Republican majorities in the House and maybe even the Senate, leading to the death of this awful, and awfully unpopular, bill.
Which I don't think will pass the House, anyway, unless "Obama's aides" have sense enough to water it down to nothing. Which he/they don't.

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If the Democrats find the balls to pass a good healthcare bill with a public option, which the majority of Americans want, they will be rewarded with gains in the House and Senate; that's what you're really afraid of.

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ORIGINAL: AnimusRex

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ORIGINAL: servantforuse

Republicans, insurance companies and drug companies are all being excluded from drafting this bill. Nothing has changed..

In my dreams. The GOP is actually bragging about being the "Party of NO".

Although I find it oddly telling that you are so offended that private interests are not allowed to write our laws.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

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ORIGINAL: servantforuse

This bill is to big and way to costly. If the dems couldn't ram it through with their super majority, it won't go through now.

I see you're letting yourself proceed unemcumbered by facts.

The Congressional Budget Office disagrees with you. But then, they ran numbers. Makes a difference.

And obviously the point of reconciliation is so that the bill doesn't need a super majority, just a majority--which it already has.

What's too big and way to costly is to continue to let spiraling health care costs weigh down the economy.

I thought you on the right liked business? Fixing health care is going to save them a bundle. They can't continue as they are with ever increasing costs. And insuring everyone (OK, close to everyone) provides the base for covering the conditions insurance won't touch now, spreading the cost and the risk--which is what insurance does. This also makes for a wellness nation instead of a crisis treatment approach, contributing to worker security and productivity.

There's a reason every other nation has already done this.

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but something is definintely better than nothing.

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

Thank you for calling attention to the bullshit Obama is trying to peddle. Bipartisan health care summit my ass. Its still my way or the highway, and the conservatives are right...the summit is just a show so he can claim either no cooperation or bipartisanship when he shoves it down our throats.

And no, fat head moron, "we" don't want Obamas version of health care reform and the polls show it.

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

The "majority" want the original bill scrapped? I, for one, fear that scrapping the entire bill will produce absolutely nothing... even less than we have now... producing only a "moral" victory for the Republicans. Any steps back would be disasterous. I am not happy with the two current proposals... but something is definintely better than nothing.

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

Repeatedly he asked for bipartisian efforts on health care reform. Repeatedly all we heard from republicans is how it will never work. (Hawaii makes a mockery of that statement) Republicans now want him to scrap all that work and start over. He isnt willing to do that, and i dont blame him. We have been trying to get some form of health care reform passed for over a decade. Its time it happened.

He is taking what each side of Congress stated they wanted, merging them together, then proposing them as one. Im not happy with everything in there. I dont believe Obama is either. But its a place to start.