I am willing to extend the ethanol subsidies another 10 years if Harkin follows through on this.

Of course, just as with the Republicans and the nuclear option, the threat to change the rules is often just as powerful as an actual change.  We'll see if Baucus gets any religion.

I'm glad I can now see the complete hypocrisy of the blogsphere...a week a go it was "we can't delay, delay means killing healthcare reform! The noise machine will turn against it. People are losing their healthcare, we need this NOW!"

and now;

Fortunately, House Progressives may be willing to reject this bad deal and start the process over next year. Key features of the House bill wouldn't have gone into effect until 2013 anyway. It's worth waiting a year for a better bill.

Because somehow getting a better bill is going to be EASIER next year? We couldn't get what you perceive to be a good bill NOW, when Democrats were sky high popular, but next year, it's going to be easier how exactly?

If progressives were really interested in getting things done now, they'd be working tirelessly NOW instead of this idiotic suggestion that we kill it and go back to it next year.

If progressive want to kill the bill, then fine, let them, it's their funeral.

I'd wait until 2010 to get a better bill.  And Obama had bett start using a veto threat.

What's needed now a strategic retreat from health care this year.  That doesn't mean not campaigning for a public option.  In fact, the rest of the year needs to be devoted to getting the right message out on reform.  And in so doing, we must ignore the GOP spin that will come out of victories in New Jersey and Virginia (the real reason--bad candidates)and press forward.  Then Obama should address the nation and spell out exactly what he wants, and not not retreat.  No more mixed messaging (hint: dump Rahm).

And even if we wait until next year, let's get a bill that will take effect in 2012, not 2013.

For quite some time I have written about the peril of Max Baucus writing this piece of crap, because this bill is a piece of crap. It does away with public option and replaces it with co-ops at the state level. So what do we have now, a giant mandate for every individual to purchase private insurance, employers are no longer obliged to buy insurance for their employees, a weak exchange plan which incidentally is not open to everyone and get this, it also ends Medicaid and SCHIP.

No this is not Romney-care (although a few weeks ago I did write that the bill being giving serious consideration in the Senate is fashioned around Mass-care to garner the label of bipartisanship), it is worse, because it will not curtail the spiraling premiums and it will do nothing to make health care more affordable and accessible. Let us call it for what it is: a gigantic handout to Max Baucus' insurance industry buddies and Republican friends, with a few cosmetic trimmings that can pass for insurance industry reform.

Oh yeah, I am still waiting for WH's response on this bill.

THE PUBLIC OPTION

We need a public plan for effective reform of the health care system. So President Obama must bring the recalcitrant Democrats into line.

If the threat to run a primary challenge against them doesn't work, lock each one in a room where Rahm Emanuel can speak to them while Reggie Love hovers.

homer   www.altara.blogspot.com

Not to mention that their "ethical" stand against the compromise global warming bill is what got us into this mess in the first place.  The progressives refused to sign onto anything that wasn't "pure", so they had to compromise it even more to get blue dogs onboard...  which left them exposed to teabagger attacks back home, and they didn't want to vote on health care or anything like it again...

Nothing worse than stubborn ideological purity....  

Baucus.

Nothing else will work, but take away his gavel and his money from his corporate masters stops, and his big pay day when he retires is threatened.

I just wish Harry Reid would have made the treat, cause he is the Ant-LBJ in my mind, perhaps the biggest whimp as Majority leader ever!

In what way does the house compromise "weaken" the public option? I have seen this claim in several places but have not seen any details.

When you have to lock Maria Cantwell out of the room because the bill is too harmful to business interests, be afraid...

Be VERY afraid...

The main argument I want to make regarding this situation, is that there is going to be a last man standing - or devil take the hindmost - type of scene for one party, or another.

Lobbyist money is toxic, in the era of the blogosphere and soon - massive , small online donations. It is an albatross upon the neck of whichever party suffers it.

Now, after having dominated the scene for the past 8 years - GOP is receiving just enough lobbyist money to be where they are - which is nowhere - and now, as almost a first in a long time - they are focussing their money on the
Dems.

This could explode the GOP and the Blue Dogs, if done right.

The more things delay, the more money gets pumped into the process from the lobbyists.

The only way delay would work is if there could be a public display of the process by which these guys are taking this much money.

Well done, DD.

I guess my fear is that in the final hour dems will not be willing to say no bill is better than this crap. And what has been left out of preceding discussion is what would happen to Medicare? Gutting this program is the way it appears everyone is thinking they will pay for the new health care. But this would be a huge mistake. Medicare works!!  And it needs defending just the way it is. This bullshit for the most part about stopping doctors and hospitals from bilking it to pay for quantity not quality is a load. My Mom had medicare. You go to the dr. or hospital for a procedure or tx. You pay 20 percent of the bill, medicare pays the rest. It is like single payer. And it works. No one takes advantage to give you stuff you don't need-- anymore than anyplace else in the system where doctors do that. The fox is already in the hen house on "Reform" and I fear where we are headed on this.

The only tactic that will affect Baucus, Landrieu,Conrad and the other Blue Cross Democrat is to run television ads pointing out that they are paid for by Insurance Companies and Pharmaceutical Companies.

This is not about "the public option"
This is not about "massachusetts models"

This is about the American people getting a chance to participate in the health plan that we pay for, and give to our senators, and congressmen, who are busy right now trying to keep us away from it.

We should be treated like they are.
We're paying for it.

They have preventative care, they've got good benefits.  The system is totally better than more than half the HMO's out there.

I know of HMO's that are so off-center you almost can't get any care at all unless you just drop yourself into an Emergency Room. In fact, one person I know has sucha  hassle with their HMO that they just go to the ER when they're sick because they don't want to deal with them.

There's a point at which a plan is good enough , that it actually works. And it does work.

We should get this plan. And if illegal aliens sign up for the plan, no proof of citizenship - boost the registration fee so they pay for it but let them join otherwise they will just go to the ER as well.