Wonkroom's Comparison Table Between the House, Senate and WH's HCR Plans....

[Clio the Leo]

... is here...

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/02/22/obama-health-plan/

[freddie mertz]

1. WH bill retains Senate's state-based exchanges, lacks PO.

It is basically a slightly cleaned up version of the Senate bill, which was always closer to what the president actually wanted (as opposed to what he SAID he wanted).

[Jennicut]

2. Does it matter? It is what you can get out of the Senate.

At this point, do we even have 50 votes for Reconciliation?

[freddie mertz]

3. We will never know what we could have gotten, if we had real progressive leadership..

As of now, we have lost the fight for real HCR, probably for another generation.

The most we can hope for now are some decent but incomplete reforms, without too much pain for the average citizen.

Canada looks good to me these days.

[Jennicut]

4. There is a lack of progressives or liberals in the Senate to begin with.

If you want them to go against their nature of wanting to protect their own self interests it is a bit harder then want Bush tried to accomplish. Either you bribe or threaten. Obama did try to bribe and got very little for it. Threatening may have been a better bet. Threaten backing from the President. But some don't want him to campaign for them to begin with. I will admit Obama lost leverage when he lost the public on this.

[freddie mertz]

5. I know. I have given up on the US government, after 40 years of Dem activism.

I don't know what I will do now.

If I had the money, I'd leave the country forever.

[Jennicut]

7. I can't leave. But I am not moving out of CT. Ned Lamont may become our Gov.

And that would be a good thing. A lot of politics is local and a lot of what effects you is local.

[freddie mertz]

8. I live in PA, and we are not doing well here.

I expect to lose the Governorship and Senate to Pukes this time.

The blueing of PA may be over, at least for a while.

[ThomCat]

16. Obama gave all his leverage away.

1. The public supported a public option by a wide margin. He could called upon the public to form a mass movement with a huge amount of energy to back him up and give him political momentum that nobody could have dared challenge, but he didn't. Instead, only the republicans called upon the public and we have the tea-baggers.

They rallied their pathetic little astro-turf campaign and milked it for a lot of mileage. Can you imagine what Obama could have done with a real, legitimate mass movement by comparison that really did have millions of people passionately behind it?

Can you imagine if huge crowds FOR health care, supported by our party, working with our party, were out there from the start? The tea-baggers would never have looked significant enough to get more than a few mentions in the press, and then only mentioned as counter-protesters.

2. Obama started negotiations by PROMISING insurance executives that they would remain vital to the health care system and profitable. That was just to get them to come to the table. That immediately doomed everything to failure. There is no way possible to reform health care if you start out by prohibiting all efforts to reign in or remove insurance companies. They are the problem that needs to be removed.

Instead of dancing around them and giving them victory from the start, he should have left them in the dark to find out what was going on by watching the evening news. Let them squirm. He should have had health care experts, patients advocates, and doctors and nurses at the table instead of them. He should have been working with people who want real health care, not people who want profit, and minimal delivery of health care. But Obama is pro-corporate first and foremost, and the insurance industry gave him a hell of a lot of money, so that was never going to happen.

3. He kept trying to offer Republicans and Conservatives within our own party EVERYTHING they asked for in exchange for their cooperation and Bipartisanship. He kept trying to get everyone to play nice and work together. He gave, and they took, and it was entirely a one-way relationship.

He gave away the rights of millions of women to have access to abortion in exchange for ONE Conservative Democratic Vote that he should have been able to cajole or bargain for by other means.

He gave away everything he claimed he wanted to accomplish when he could have steamrolled all of it right over them with his mass support and public momentum (with the help of #1, above) and then offered them a chance to be relevant again by jumping on the bandwagon.

He was so busy giving away everything in exchange for votes, he gave away all the rights and vital needs and most of the people he claims he cares about. He made it clear that he cares about "his friends on the right" more than he really cares about lefties and liberals, more than women, more than LGBTs, more than many people with disabilities, more than the homeless, etc.

These are the reason why Obama never had any momentum. He threw it all away.

[jefferson_dem]

6. Kucinich lost.

This President never promised "progressive leadership", as you would likely define it. Sorry but that's the reality.

[freddie mertz]

9. I know, I let myself believe it for a few months.

I knew he was a conservative at the beginning, after the "Reagan" interview gave it away, and the FICA vote.

I won;t make that mistake again.

[jefferson_dem]

11. I understand your frustration.

But let's not lose touch with reality.

[freddie mertz]

13. I will survive. But my political allegiances may have shifted.

To what and whom, I have absolutely no idea.

I can't help thinking that this plan is much less than we could have gotten, given the historical opportunity that has already, to a much greater extent than I could even have anticipated, been squandered.

We could have fixed at least some of the wrongs that are killing us as a nation.

I fear that opportunity has passed before our eyes.

[Better Believe It]

17. You only need 50 votes without reconciliation. Just force Republicans to filibuster!

And I think you could dump the Health Insurance Industry and Big Pharma Protection Act and get 50 votes needed to pass universal single payer health care if President Obama and the Democratic Party supported that.

[DrToast]

15. I don't think you can change to a national exchange through reconciliation

Everything that can't be changed through reconciliation has stick with the Senate version.

[Cosmocat]

10. Thanks for the link ...

nm

[ThomCat]

12. This bill "keeps the abortion compromise"

This is the "compromise" Obama made, Entirely Giving Away access to abortion for Millions of Women in exchange for one single Senate vote. :grr:

It also keeps the state based Exchanges instead of any kind of a public option.

The Insurance Industry already controls the State Insurance Boards in every state. Usually the people running those boards are appointed upon the recommendation of insurance industry, of they are former lobbyists from the insurance industry. But these State Insurance Boards are going to be in charge of the State based Exchanges.

That means that the Insurance industry is in charge of the Exchanges in each state, from they very start. So what is the chance they're going to allow any of these Exchanges to drive down prices, or drive up coverage? :eyes:

[freddie mertz]

14. Yes, this bill is very very bad.

But we are being exhorted to love it, because it is all we can get.

[Cha]

18. Kick for relevance.