Not to put lipstick on a pig, but I think we dodged a bullet tonight.

[countmyvote4real]

The bullet is the current Senate HCR bill. It sucks and is the antithesis of what was promised on the campaign. Thankfully, there is no chance that the current Senate bill (and the caveat of anything else) will ever pass the 60-vote hurdle. It is long past time to fuck bipartisan support.

How is anybody supposed to remain hopeful when the WH gave it all away from the get-go? This is a good thing if it forces the Dems to be both progressive and aggressive in the pursuit of their agenda. And that is the question. What is the agenda? It all seems to be about appeasing the health insurance and pharma lobbies.

If the Dems cannot get it together then they deserve to lose our support. Period. Wake up, Sunshine.

Medicare for All.

[Ozymanithrax]

1. 45,000 people a year don't dodge the bullet, they just die for lack of health care

Republicans are overjoyed.

[ibegurpard]

5. and the current HCR proposal was going to change that how?

insurance isn't health care

[tinrobot]

12. 30 million people with insurance buys a lot of health care.

Particularly when pre-existing conditions are outlawed.

The Senate bill isn't grewaat, but it's a helluva lot better than status quo.

[Capn Sunshine]

22. that doesn't matter to idealogues

the perfect has always been the enemy of the good in progressive politics.

[ibegurpard]

23. you'd have an argument

if the Senate bill was actually good

[Capn Sunshine]

31. what part of "this cuts our deficit by $132 billion the first 10 years and by over $1 trillion in 20

is bad?
How about access for 31 million Americans who don't currently have health insurance.
Is that bad?

I guess so.

[leeroysphitz]

39. How about access for everyone.

Now be honest for a moment. Do you really think that the senate bill is truly the best deal that we could possibly get right now? In other words, do you honestly believe that there is NO possible way for the senate version to be any better at all?

Lets face it we have one shot to get HCR right why not fight to get the absolute best possible deal? How is that bad? Why are you fighting that?

[Javaman]

41. Exactly right.

It never fails to amaze me when people have a shot at the gold but settle for last place as long as they finish the race.

Because, that's all this current bill amounts to; last place.

[HughMoran]

9. That's it really

If we'll never get HCR now, then this is all bad.

[Political Heretic]

17. It means we have a chance for health care working familes need and deserve

rather than saddling them with insurance reform that will actively do more to hurt them than help them in the long run.

That's the problem with the Senate Bill. It's not even marginal good. It's not even a foundation we could build on later. It's a clusterfuck, a "disaster" as Rep. Pete Defazio put it, that will do more to raise costs and reduce quality of care for the very people that need health care reform the most!

It's a tragedy that defeating this clusterfuck may delay real reform for some time while political will to tackle health care in Washington has to be rebuilt from the ground up. That is a shame.

But what's WORSE is to pass THIS bill, which does more to hurt the people who need reform the most in the long term, and makes it so that any revisiting of health care (which wouldn't be likely for a generalization, because just like "Welfare Reform" we've tackled the issue and no one wants to touch it again, even though welfare reform was a disaster for poor people) - would require UNDOING WHAT WEVE DONE before you could even start to do any good.

[Skidmore]

42. That chance will be tabled for another generation.

I'll bet you soup to nuts that Congress drops the whole thing like a hot potato and doesn't revisit it. You can bet safely that Rs won't touch it. Both sides will sit back and wait for the Boomers to die off.

[Political Heretic]

13. Actually, they do doge a bullet.

Since what was set up in this bill does more harm than good to them in the long run, and given the fact that they deserve real solutions that treat them JUSTLY and provide quality of care not just conditional access to insurance without adequate cost limitations or protections, without adequate subsidies (substantially weakened in senate version of bill) without reasonable limits on out of pocket expenses (senate version raised the cap even higher, making the fear of every having a serious medical need and having the cost of that car driving you into bankruptcy - just like it would have before reform - a REAL FEAR FOR MILLIONS OF AMERICANS.....

[Frank Booth]

16. Don't worry.

Doncha know we're getting Medicare for All? Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Jim Webb have it all shined up and ready to go.

Don't things always get better when the Democrats are taught a lesson? Like when Ralph Nader helped bring down that punk Al Gore -- aren't we so much better off because of it?

[Political Heretic]

20. He didn't and they weren't taught a lesson.

Because they election was stolen, remember? And even if it had not been stolen, no Democratic took at as a referendum on anything, or a repudiation of any political philosophy. There was no mandate, there was no clear statement from the electorate. There was no message sent, and no lesson taught.

It's a shame actually, I wish there would have been. We probably wouldn't be where we are now, with Democrats needing to learn harsh lessons today.

[thereismore]

2. Rep. Weiner said we should extend Medicare in the Jobs bill, which is next. I agree. nt

[DesertFlower]

3. me too. nt

[tinrobot]

14. Me three

[derby378]

19. Not good enough, though

Medicare extension is not the same as bringing coverage to the average American.

[tinrobot]

26. Depends how far they extend it.

[donheld]

4. Yes we dodged a bullet, but got hit by an 18 wheeler.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

24. And a truck. +1

[scheming daemons]

6. You're dreaming if you think the result of tonight is a BETTER bill...

There will be *NO* bill now.


Nada.


Nothing.



The "lesson" that was learned by Democrats in the Senate tonight is: Don't ever try to tackle Health Care Reform again.

Ever.


It will NEVER happen now. Not until the system completely collapses. And maybe not then.



Nobody currently alive will live to see Health Care Reform in their lifetimes.


The Democrats will *NOT* move to the left. Study political history. They won't move MORE to the extreme, but more to the center.

That's the lesson EVERY Democratic politician "learned" tonight... no matter what lesson the voters THOUGHT they were sending.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. There will be "no" bill only if the Dems (who will still have the kind of majority

that allowed the Republicanites to steamroller their way into whatever they wanted) refuse to submit a decent one instead of this steaming pile of corporate welfare.

And cut the "people will die" crap.

I'm severely under-insured myself, so I've watched with great interest.

The provisions don't go into effect for FOUR YEARS.

Medicare was up and running in one.

I'm amazed at the DLCers low expectations.

[Frank Booth]

18. You're right, and what you're saying should be obvious, even though most here probably

won't get it.

Anyone who disagrees with you should go read this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4232746

[alcibiades_mystery]

40. That's what they really believe. They're insane.

It's sad, really.

[Tim01]

7. Yeah, terrible bill.

We need a solution.

[Statistical]

8. The current Senate bill doesn't need 60 votes.

It has ALREADY passed the Senate.

All that needs to happen is the House swallows the bullet and takes one for the team.

1)House member drafts house bill IDENTICAL to Senate version
2)Bill passes by simple majority
3)Bill has ALREADY passed Senate
4)Compatible bills have passed both houses
5)Obama signs the Senate bill AS IS.

So what bullet did we dodge?

Any hope of making the Senate bill the slightest bit better.
Hell compared to the Senate nightmare the House bill looks downright good.

[countmyvote4real]

27. The current Senate bill is SHIT and full of loopholes designed by Medical Insurance Complex.

I'm glad it will not happen with the onus of being written by the Democratic party. That is a dodged bullet.

[Statistical]

37. You assume the Democratic leadership will risk no bill over the "easy" solution of passing the...

Senate bill in the house.

So it isn't a dodged bullet. Instead of the Senate bill being combined w/ House bill and at least getting 1%-2% better the final bill likely will be the exact Senate bill with no improvements to avoid having to go back to the Senate.

Nobody is saying Senate bill is good. It isn't a dodged bullet because the cowardly leadership WILL USE THIS AS AN EXCUSE TO FORCE HOUSE TO ACCEPT SENATE BILL AS-IS with no changes.

[andym]

10. But Medicare for All requires a huge tax increase

to pay for it. Basically it will cost 2 trillion a year (as estimated by the CA nurses) which would almost double the federal budget. That has to be paid for somehow. Ultimately it will save money for consumers, but the idea of raising taxes, even if the taxes actually result in less cost to the consumer, is a difficult sell in much of the USA.

I actually want Medicare for Now, I'm just not sure it is possible to get. I do think it might be possible to open Medicare to everyone in this political climate, as long as it is not subsidized.

[Political Heretic]

21. Medicare fo all is not single payer - you would pay for your medicare coverage.

So the 2 trillion dollar number is pretty suspect.

Most of the money could be raise from premiums, and some from various taxation, not all of which have to be horribly unappealing.

For one thing, we should have seized on the popular outrage at wall street as an opportunity to tax them in the ways that they should be taxed - a % from stock sale transactions (we've done this in the past in the US), increase of capital gains, closing most or all loopholes in the corporate tax code (wouldn't need to raise the tax rate then), etc.

Would have been easy to get large popular support for sticking wall street after all that's happened.

[andym]

29. I was referring to Medicare for All as described in HR676

http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economic_study_2009.pdf
In this study, the 2 trillion price tag is mentioned. This is of course single-payer.

If you just mean opening Medicare for everyone and have them pay the premium price. i support that and think it might be doable.
As I said I actually support and advocate for HR676. It's just that I have little hope it can be achieved at the moment.

[Political Heretic]

32. Oh sorry!

:(

[andym]

33. No problem. My post was probably not completely clear.

I would really like it if they would try to open Medicare to all. I would be willing to pay the 400-500/month premiums without hesitation.

[countmyvote4real]

25. I think it's a matter of who gets the money/taxes.

The current senate bill requires a mandate/tax for all that goes to private insurance companies. (woosh out of you pocket and ka-ching into theirs) If that mandate/tax goes to a government administrated fund/single-payer/Medicare/public option, it would go a lot further to reforming the entire health care approach of this country.

[andym]

30. I think it helps to have the money go to a govt program

but raising taxes has been toxic in this country at least since the time of Reagan. The knee-jerk opposition to taxes stymies reform.

[countmyvote4real]

36. If you want it... enough... you'll stop parsing and start prancing.

Any otherwise, meaningful participation could have the same result. It's a truth passed on to all grasshoppers for almost any occasion.

Peace. (I just threw that in to annoy the larvae.)

[countmyvote4real]

35. Please delete.

[Xipe Totec]

15. Pig, meet lipstick. Lipstick, pig n/t

[rhett o rick]

28. It does not take no 60 votes to get the Senate version.

If the HOR passes the Senate version, it goes to President Obama. And it appears he loves it.

I second Medicare for all.

[Faryn Balyncd]

34. ...IF the House has the sense to KILL the Senate bill. . . . . .

. . . . realize that passing a bad bill will take us, and the country, over a cliff, and resign ourselves to cutting our losses, re-grouping and running on Medicare-for-All in November.

The Republicans would like to see us pass this bill so they can run against it.

[invictus]

38. K&R. Medicare for All!