Four reasons Democrats should pass the health-care bill -- from an opponent of the effort

I agree with every single point. And with what Paul Krugman wrote this morning as well. So now it's up to the Democratic leadership ( and I do mean Obama) to stand up for health reform. And they will need our voices to tell them that. If you believe health reform should pass (and some of you will not), then you need to call or write your representatives. If you do not, the voices of negativity will win out. As Yeats wrote, "The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

Those are all good reasons that the Democrats should man up and craft solid health reform.

They are also reasons to forget the sorry bills at hand. People don't respect legislators who solve the Medicare D problem by spending more instead of rescinding the "no negotiation" provision.

People don't respect legislators who are too cowardly to put everyone on a level playing field then try to blame unions for refusing to go along with an inequitable tax on benefits.

People don't respect legislators who jabber about affordability of insurance premiums and ignore the actual cost of getting treatment when needed.

People don't respect people who try to justify the obvious hypocrisy in the legislation by claiming that anyone who objects is "insensitive to the poor".

There's a lot to be said for sticking closely to the interdependent mandate/pre-existing condition/subsidy parts of the bill, but anything those parts do not depend on should be stripped out and voted on separately, if at all. This includes the Louisiana Purchase, the Corn Hustker kickback and the Union buyout.

Don't count on Democrats being able to figure out what they "should" do.

They are a bunch of useless cowards.

"The people respect sincerity, consistency, and strength of purpose"

Not this people. I respect pragmatism, an incremental. empirical approach, and fiscal discipline, not politicians giving gifts to unions, corporate donors, and voters who don't pay for anything.

I don't care what plan you support, you have to scale it out slowly, with multiple decision points instead of betting it all that these idiots have it all figured out.

Health reform will eventually pass, it just might be the massive scaling back of what we have now when the TBills stop selling- unless we find some incentives for people to pay less. It's a folly to try to find incentives for doctors to charge less...let's just say that if we can't find a way to make paying $50 to see an LPN for a cold work to a consumer advantage over paying $180 at the doctor's office, we lose.

Four reasons the Democrats in the House should not pass the Senate bill from a supporter of the effort for real health care reform:

1) There are no guarantees the Senate would improve the bill in ways needed, promises by Reid have no legal standing

2) Tens of thousands of people will needlessly die each year if the Senate bill is passed as the few real reforms are delayed until 2014 and more than twenty million people will still lack insurance in ten years. This is a scandal and moral disgrace, something for which Klein earlier criticized Lieberman.

3) The Senate bill is unfair in taxing some health care plans, financing expanded health care too much on the backs of persons receiving Medicare benefits, few people truly believe $50 billion can be reduced a year, with an independent commission seeking further decreases in the future, without detrimentally affecting benefits in some ways, and providing very inadequate subsidies for middle class people

4) The Democrats, if they resorted to this strategy, would be showing contempt for the majority of people who, according to polls, oppose the health care bills, showing they really learned nothing from Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts and would probably lose control of the House of Representatives, as well as six or seven Senate seats

Democrats should pass a simple, short bill this year that will guarantee the most popular reforms going into effect before the elections. Obama and Democrats should be competent enough, we hope, to come up with ways to directly or indirectly, through taxation, health insurance companies so premiums would not increase too much.

Obama, Democrats and any willing Republicans should then work on developing, passing a more comprehensive health care reform bill this or next year. This should include tort reform and truly adequate subsidies for people to buy health care insurance. The bill should be shorter and less bureaucratic. Most people are justifiably worried about bureaucrats trying to overrule doctors in what constitutes unnecessary testing and the best medical treatments.

Cry Ezra, Cry! As your dream of big government healthcare "reform" dies. Thank you Massachusetts voter, you may have just saved the country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMlPE1lV_5Y

Wrong wrong wrong! Everything just changed!

CALIFORNIA IS TRYING TO GET SINGLE-PAYER. The California Senate Appropriations Committee just approved Thursday (yesterday) a proposal to set-up a single payer system in California. It goes to the full California Senate next week.

Google "California single-payer plan advances"

This immediately changes everything in the healthcare debate! Think!! California is the seventh biggest economy in the world and single-payer will cut into private insurers' profits in a very big way. Private health insurers are going to have to change tactics in Washington immediately, to prevent this from happening. They are going to have to go back and try to get a deal from the U.S. House.

This changes what progressives should do next. First, support the California bill.

Next, hold it up as a states' rights model and don't let the U.S. Congress pass any provision that would prevent a single payer in California or any other state.

This could not only get us all to a single-payer, and sooner rather than later. And it not only puts the corporate moderate Dems on notice.

It is also going to drive a wedge between the teapartiers and the corporate moderates in the Republican Party. What is Scott Brown going to say -- that he supported Massachusetts' healthcare reform but is against what California is doing because it goes further than the U.S. Congress' bill?!

I hate to break it to House Democrats, but even if Martha Coakley, who I voted for on Tuesday, had won, accepting the Senate bill as is would still probably yield the most optimal, the most progressive solution. Even with 60 Senate Democrats, would House Democrats, by ping-ponging the Senate bill back to the Senate, really want to give the likes of Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, et. al. another shot at mucking up the bill? By the House accepting the Senate bill as is, the likes of Joe Lieberman et. al. won't be able to get their grubby little mitts on the health care reform bill anymore, and won't have a shot at mucking up the health care reform bill any further.

The bill has excited such opposition because it is such a poor bill. It does little or nothing to control costs and only covers half the uninsured. Further, everyone saw how bribes were offered from the public purse to pharmacutical companies, unions, and other special interest groups for their support (or to mute their opposition) and to half a dozen states to get senators who opposed the policy to support the bill. If the democrats want to do the right thing they should scrap this and write a good bill. Or get behind Sen. Wyden's bill.

@Lee_A_Arnold: Keep dreaming. Schwarzenegger has already said he'd veto a single payer bill (and he's twice vetoed similar reform plans). Doesn't change a thing except it has apparently got your (unwarranted) hopes up.

A single payer system in California would cost an estimated $210 billion the first year. The bill approved by the Senate committee would set up a commission to recommend ways to pay for the single payer system.

The bill would have to pass the full Senate and Assembly. The governor is not likely to sign any such bill. Passing a bill and deciding upon the funding later seems odd indeed.

Good lord. I can't understand the progressives who think we should scrap THIS bill so we can get a MORE progressive bill. One special election in Massachusetts has turtled the Dems up. 60 is the new 51 in the Senate. On the back of WHOSE magical votes is a MORE progressive bill going to pass? The current rules suck, but they're the current rules.

And to those advocating a minimalist bill that passes only the lowest-hanging fruit: the base is already disgusted by the compromises already made. The spectacle of advancing the current bill to the one yard line (far from perfect but a vast improvement over the status quo) and then settling for a field goal attempt when the only remaining obstacle is a single up-and-down House vote... well. Enough of the progressive base stayed at home to ensure Coakley was defeated. Watch what happens in November.

If the House drops this ball I couldn't care less who "controls" Congress.

Here's the way forward:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/22/828934/-Strategy-memo-to-Senate-Chiefs-of-Staff

All,

I've never called my representative before. I just called now and ask if he would make a public statement that he would vote for the senate bill. I said (and I mean it) that if he would make such a statement, I will donate to his campaign next go around. If he will not, I will certainly vote against him and probably make a token contribution ($25 or something) to his next opponent.

It may not help, but I feel better having done it.