We have two election cycles to get through before anyone at all notices any improvement in health care delivery, assuming any meaningful bill is passed. Insurance companies will continue to jack premiums, people will still lose jobs and coverage, employers will still reduce benefits and constantly change their preferred provider lists, etc. The majority who don't pay a lot of attention to policy wonkery will be highly susceptible to Repuke and MSM arguments that Dems passed a big, messy expensive bill that hasn't changed anything--and it won't have until 2013.
UNLESS-- the Kucinich ERISA waiver remains, giving states the option of implementing single payer. (The Weiner amendment allowing a floor vote on single payer is going to fail, but it will help us to see who our real friends are.)
OR-- we can get an amendment allowing anyone to buy into Medicare, or at least allowing some people to buy into Medicare. The obvious advantage is that Medicare is already a going concern, and will not have to be invented from scratch like the exchange and the public option. The original Medicare was implemented within a year, and this proposed amendment would just expand it. It could be implemented fast enough to provide visible benefits to a critical mass of people.
I urge you and everyone to write to Kucinich and Weiner and ask them to propose such an amendment, as they are the single payer advocates who have demonstrated a willingness to amend the current bill.
Dennis Kucinich (216) 228-8850; (202)225-5871
Anthony Weiner (718) 743-0441; (202) 225-6616
AND--it would be way cheaper, too. See
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6423577