I love it when people (who aren't sick, poor or going without healthcare) say START OVER!

[berni_mccoy]

This is probably my biggest pet peeve on the issue. What makes anyone here think that throwing away the bill and starting over from scratch is going to work? The Late Sen. Kennedy was the creator of the Medicare For All bill, many years ago. Why didn't he push this bill through the HELP Committee? Do you think we'll gain *more* votes if we do start over? I'd really seriously like to hear how that's going to happen. But it isn't.

If you seriously think that we are going to get more votes if we start over, prove it.

Otherwise, starting over is effectively killing all reform. Period.

You shut this process down now and not a single Democrat will pick it back up for decades. If you don't agree, explain how that won't happen please. Otherwise, what you really are saying is that you want no reform at all.

Can we please dispense of this nonsensical stance and work with what passed the House? Does the House Bill have issues? Yes, most notably the Stupak Amendment. This needs to be removed. What else can be done to make it better working with the Senate?

Provide a constructive argument instead of destructive one and you'll be taken much more seriously by your members of Congress.

[Lost-in-FL]

1. What make you think no one will pick it up? nt

[Richardo]

7. The experience of the last 100 years.

If it fails altogether, HC reform will be dead for the rest of Obama's term(s) and certainly for the Republican who follows him. That's 8 years minimum, and as long as 15 years.

[HamdenRice]

2. I notice that people with previously existing conditions are in favor of the bill

I haven't read too many posts by people with P.E.C.'s saying they want the bill to fail.

When you're plotting world wide revolution from the basement, and mom not only sends down pepperoni hot pockets for lunch for your revolution gaming breaks, but covers you on her employee health plan, it's easy to hold out for "single payer or nothing!!!"

[Statistical]

30. +1.

The HCR overall is a turd and it is sad this is the best Democratic super majority can accomplish however it does do some good things:

* forces insurance companies to issue policies at will
* requires employers to offer coverage with minimum required level of benefits and max employee cost or pay a fine of 6% of wages
* eliminates PEC and higher rates for PEC
* by having "near"-universal coverage it should reduce amount of times emergency room (extreme cost) is used for first time care

It could be used as a platform for an expanded public option later.

Is it good? No. Is it something? Yes. Is starting over going to produce something better? No unless you have new people in Congress.

Take same people and start over you are not magically going to get a new super bill.

[ProleNoMore]

3. Unemployed - No Health Care - I Say Start Over

eom

[no limit]

6. Yet this bill would actually help you.

[ProleNoMore]

12. Nope - Have Not Been Unemployed For Six Months Yet This Go Around

By the time the Senate gets to things - who knows.

[no limit]

15. And for that reason you don't think it should pass

I'm really sorry that congress is not able to cater to your own individual needs. But I guess if you can't get it for another couple months better not to get it at all. That sounds very logical.

[prolesunited]

8. Do you currenty have any conditions that currently require care?

My husband and I are on COBRA, have pre-existing conditions that make it impossible to obtain coverage, and our conditions could literally kill or disable us if they go untreated. We use generic meds whenever possible, but some meds, particularly for my asthma, are quite expensive and no generic equivalents are available. But who really needs to breathe?

[ProleNoMore]

10. Minor Conditions - I Gave Up On HCR The Last Time I Was Unemployed

eom

[prolesunited]

13. So, tell me

What are people like my husband and I supposed to do. Wait it out and possibly die or go bankrupt in the meantime?

[ProleNoMore]

14. I Am Over 50 - I Learned The Last Time I Was Unemployed That The World Does Not Care About Me

So Yes - I am prepared to die and go bankrupt.

As I said, I gave up on HCR reform the last time I was unemployed.

[prolesunited]

16. Sorry, I'm not ready to roll over and die

[ProleNoMore]

17. We Are Fighting Against The Tide - See This Clip From Sicko - Dates From 1972

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QkgUkM0o6Q

[berni_mccoy]

21. Sorry, you don't get to decide that for everyone else.

[ProleNoMore]

22. I Am Not Deciding - The World Of Politics, Economics, And Society Has Decided For Me

eom

[Johonny]

29. don't you get berni_mccoy 'spoint: there is no starting over

if this fails to pass it's 10-15 more years until yet another round of reform starts. It seems to me there's the white upper middle class douche bags that know the history of health reform in congress and people that think there's going to be another bill.

[Statistical]

32. Why the race card? Seems pointless and petty.

[phantom power]

4. Reminds me of this...

The dynamics working against liberals are fairly obvious: they are the ones who want to help a whole bunch of people in dire straits and nobody else gives a damn. That makes them weaker in the final stages because everyone knows they want it more (that people are desperate) so they will not risk getting nothing at all when so many are suffering. The people who are willing to walk away always have more power in a negotiation.

So, knowing that, why in the hell do they go into every discussion having already given away everything but their bottom line? Especially when the only people with whom they are negotiating are ostensibly on their own team, where presumably the leadership and the president have some extra sway? If there was ever a case for the liberals to go in with guns blazing, demanding repeal of the Hyde Amendment, demanding single payer, demanding huge tax increases on the wealthy, demanding open border access to the health care system (which some countries have.) Then they would have had something to work with.

Instead they went in with the tried and true "don't make trouble" strategy assuring everyone who would listen that they had no intention of upsetting the status quo or causing "distractions" and practically apologizing for even asking for universal coverage. In the end they ended up actually rolling back their position on a matter of fundamental principle. And it sounds like that still isn't going to be enough.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/goldilocks-was-betrayed-by-digby-all.html

[bigtree]

5. what makes you think you actually know the needs of folks here?

are you clairvoyant?

I remember the failure of the health bill in 1993 produced the compromise which led to SCHIP (Children's Health Insurance). That was eventually signed into law by Bush. Why can't we do better this time with control of Congress and the WH? This is just kiss-ass timidity to try and circle the wagons around this weak House bill, before the Senate even presents theirs. You want to fold behind the House bill without a fight for what we need and deserve. There's no telling what you'll actually get in the end. I remember the ballyhooed 'education reform' with lovable Ted Kennedy celebrating along with the WH. Years later and we're still waiting for the mandates to be funded. You shouldn't be counseling folks here to fold in behind this political compromise, at the very least not until the fight is over.

[no limit]

9. People can be selfish. This would help millions of poor people in this country

But when you dont have healthcare to worry about you sit on the sidelines bitching and moaning all day.

[ipaint]

26. The selfish people were the comfortable middle class insured of the last thirty years.

They are the ones who stood by, insured and satisfied, while a million plus of their fellow citizens where culled by ins. companies.

Now that the problem has grown to nip at their heels too, they now are the compassionate ones and those folks who have been screaming into the wind for decades advocating covering every last american are "selfish".

Folks who ignored a deadly problem for 30 years now have all the answers and it's their way or the highway. Don't worry, they say, we'll come back and fix it".

Really. As a long time uninsured, poor to working class to poor american pardon me if your promises mean less than shit.

[no limit]

28. Promises? Everything in this bill will become law if it passes. These are not promises

And you are down right selfish. Your idea of reform is single payer. That's my idea too. The difference is that you are willing to screw over millions of poor people if you don't get exactly what you want.

The amount of poor this bill would help is undisputable. But of course people like you need to get exactly what you want or you're willing to throw the baby out with the bath water; no matter how many people get screwed over in the process.

You can give as many great little speeches about how you care about the poor; but if you are willing to throw this bill out and prevent any kind of reform for decades you are just as selfish as those people that didn't care for the last 30 years.

[ipaint]

31. Reform?

Any proposal that conveniently ignores the rot at the center of our political system will fail.

Good luck enforcing all the new regulations. I guarantee the only real enforcement will be the mandate fines.

http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/search_result.php?agency=Dept+of+Health+%26+Human+Services&id=EAHHS


We will continue to have a teired system based on wealth. That's unsustainable and always discriminates against those without the financial resources to protect themselves from the free market parasites that feed on the lower classes.

I haven't heard a peep about the quality of the plan medicaid will provide to the 20 million poor and exactly what hoops will need to be jumped through to qualify. And what about all the people in the working class who will not be able to afford their after subsidy premium of who scrape enough together to pay the ins. extortionists but can't afford to pay co-pays deductibles and drugs. Never mind dental and eye care.


Meanwhile the medical industry stuffs the regulatory agencies full of ex employee/lobbyists to game the system.


You think that is the unselfish way to go. Allowing americans to be pitted against fellow americans in a desperate grab for health care, a perverse version of musical chairs where there are 18 million less seats than needed. Settling for that is progress?

Insurance corporations say jump and the majority of americans say how high.

[no limit]

33. You didn't address anything I said

The bottom line is this current bill better than the status quo. And by all accounts it is. You say that the new rules which you think are good won't be enforced and the ones you think are bad will be. Do you not see how this sounds like a paranoid rant of someone like Glenn Beck as opposed to a real debate? These bills if signed in to law will be just that, laws. And those include the inability for insurance companies to unfairly jack up their rates, drop coverage for people, and not insure people with pre-existing conditions. It will also drop the anti-trust exemption and put other regulations in place.

In addition to that it will make healthcare so affordable for poor people the CBO estimated that 96% of the current uninsured population will be covered.

But because this bill isn't perfect people like you would rather have no bill at all (because that really is your only other option at this point) screwing over all those people this bill would help. If that isn't selfishness then I don't know what is.

[ipaint]

39. And people that set up and execute an international torture ring

get put in jail alongside those who illegally spy on americans alongside those who facilitate in a criminal cover-up.

And corporation are regularly brought to justice for criminal behavior including the financial institutions that brought down the world economy.

All those lobbyists in regulatory agencies and the $$$$$ that follows them have absolutely no sway against the all mighty "rule of law".

And we all live happily ever after in the greatest nation on earth.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No fairy tales for me, thanks anyway.

Once we hook up the medical industry and wall street to a steady, infinite flow of legally mandated taxpayer cash, with none of the price controls that a universal gov. program comes with, weaning them off of it at some imaginary future date will kill many times the number this bill supposedly saves.

Settling for less does have long term deadly consequences.

[no limit]

40. The amount of irrational thinking people have around here is amazing

you are refusing to argue with facts, instead you are arguing based on things you think might happen but you have absolutely no evidance to back this up. Glenn Beck does the same thing. With your logic it means that congress shouldn't pass any laws ever as those laws wont be enforced. This is insanely irrational.

While you do this about 47 million people go without coverage. And you are willing to kill a bill that would cover 96% of these people.

[mzmolly]

11. Hear hear!

:toast:

[TransitJohn]

18. I'm not sick, particularly poor, or going without, but I say START OVER.

I get extorted for thousands of dollars per year as it is for insurance that isn't worth warm piss, and with this abortion of a "reform" bill, my rates will go up. Single payer straight up.

[prolesunited]

19. Yeah, you're covered

Screw the rest of us in the time being until you get what you want.

[quiller4]

25. I'm not porr. I'm retired by not Medicare eligible. I pay thousands

for an individual policy each yaer. I may pay more under the current legislation but I say go on from here. This is a GREAT start.

[dionysus]

20. exactly. by golly, those folks who don't even want a public option are gonna vote for single payer..

:crazy:

[berni_mccoy]

27. seriously

[TheKentuckian]

23. I'm not sure on what basis to expect better results from starting over

Its like people expect hundreds of lightbulbs to come on in Congress and we'll land on single payer or that there is some magic speech that can be made and all the opposition to pick up the cause.

Maybe some people have Jedi mind tricked themselves into believing there is some national cry out for single payer or something (which it isn't) and that our cries will be soon heard.

I'll be against the bill as soon as I think it is worse (and not just for me but the people as a whole) than what we have not because its not as good as it "should be". I don't care who thinks that to be wimpy or whatever because the problem is just too ruinous to be unwilling to take positive steps forward in lieu of a hoped for giant leap.

[berni_mccoy]

24. exactly.

[Javaman]

34. There is no crying in baseball!!

I am really developing a real and heated disdain for the "start over" crowd.

Rather than starting over, how about telling the repukes and the blue dogs to fuck off and pass the bill through reconciliation?

that start over crowd are just more repuke and blue dog appeasers.

[dugaresa]

35. If the folks in Washington had any common sense they would have done a best of breed analysis of

every other health care system that works on this planet.

The ones where:

1. majority of citizens are happy
2. where people get care at the same level or better than those who are currently insured here in the US.

They would have seen how much less those systems cost and that we could very well reduce the money dumped into health care as a precentage of our GDP and that money "saved" could go into other areas of the economy.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

36. I am currently uninsured

I am sick and have been sick before and not able to go to the doctor. I do not support starting over, but the bill the way it is right now is not acceptable. I love the fact that it will cover more people, I do not support this bill as a giveaway to the insurance industry and understand why DK voted no on the bill the way it is right now.

[Kansas Wyatt]

37. The Democrats can make laws now, that expands Medicaid and bans...

Insurance Companies from discriminating against 'Pre-Existing' conditions.

So why should the whole country concede Health Care Reform to the Insurance Industry and accept laws forcing people to do business with the Insurance Industry for overpriced and useless health insurance?

But if a BAIL OUT of the Insurance Industry and the continued extortion of the American People is what you want to call Health Care Reform, then go ahead and think that. If you also think the House bill is going to get better, then don't be surprised when even more of it is shaved off, by the time it gets to President Obama's desk. Hell, that alleged Public Option, may end up being only a very modest expansion of Medicaid by then.

Too bad we didn't start out with everything we wanted, rather than what we thought we could finally end up with. Somebody didn't tell the Republicans and the Insurance Industry that they were not allowed to shave anything off that along the way, which is exactly what has happened and will continue to happen.

As far as fixing anything later... Have the Democrats fixed Bush's Prescription Medicare Coverage?
No wonder this alleged Health Care Reform looks familiar.

Nice sig line... 27 years

Start over the RIGHT way to actually achieve success.

[havocmom]

38. I love it when people who get their issue addressed pick on others who want more issues addressed

NOT