On this and many other issues, the Republicans in Congress don't give a damn about what is best for America. They care only about obstruction and antagonism, because they believe it endears them to their "base". Nevermind that they have NO ideas about how to solve the pressing crises this nation is facing. They only whine in opposition to every single one of the Democrats and Obama's plans.

It's not surprising that they would be against healthcare reform, as anything that doesn't allow massive amounts of cash to funnel into corporate executive pockets is automatically "Communist" or "Socialist" or "evil" or whatever shopworn 1950's phrase they're bandying about this week.

It illustrates something very profound, however- Obama and the Democratic members of Congress need to grow a goddamn spine and FIGHT for what needs to be done. They need to get over the idea of making nice with obstructionists who will never vote with them, no matter what the issue is. The Democrats have a majority now- they need to FUCKING USE IT!!!

The Republicans idea of bipartisanship is "do it our way!" The only way to talk with them now it to quote to them from the collected sayings of Rahm Emanuel.

To Reid, the collegiality of the very exclusive old boy's club known as the U.S. Senate, is sacred. Choosing between the will of the voter's or the approval of his pals in the club, you the voter will get screwed every time.

If Reid chose to do so, he could convene the Democratic caucus in the senate and lay down the law. He won't. He forfeited his cojones the day he became majority leader.

The Democrats won't have to lean on GOP non compliance to blame their failure. They'll fail all on their own. No one will ever do anything about healthcare in the US. It will never happen. At best, at the very best what you will see is a flurry of new taxes to generate funds to give to the states to let them each fund healthcare for more or less the same population of poor people that they do now.

And that is it. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been smoking dried and crushed unicorn penis.

That's a key stat a lot of Americans don't know about.

Some six times as many people die as did on 9/11. And this happens every year.

Why?

Because they can't afford health insurance or hospitals or doctors.

18,000.

And we have rich bastards screaming bloody murder about a 1% increase in their already very low taxes.

Yes, low. The wealthy in America are near historic lows for their taxation. And we're definitely at the low end of taxation compared with the rest of the world.

We need Single Payer, period. It would all eliminate those 18,000 PREVENTABLE deaths a year.

Medical costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy in America, too. And most of those cases hit people who actually have insurance. Out of pocket costs destroy them.

Single Payer would all but eliminate that as well.

Neither party wants to chart the best course for Americans. That would be Single Payer. Between the two parties, the Dems at least want to do something to get us closer to universal health care. But it falls way short. The GOP wants to maintain the status quo, which is despicable. They have decided it's better for them to sink anything and everything Obama and the Dems try do. They are no longer a serious party. The Dems should ignore them from this point forward and concentrate on herding centrists and conservadems into rational legislation.

I'm an IT worker (meaning I bounce around between industries a lot), and I spent about two years working for my state's biggest and most profitable private health insurer. Of all the companies I've worked for (10-15ish), none had a larger, more complex and convoluted bureaucracy. Every manager had 15 other managers, there was never a clear chain of command, the most minute changes took ages and pounds of paperwork to implement, most tasks got put into company wide games of "hot potato" that frequently never concluded, and there were countless employees whose jobs had no apparent purpose other than further complicating the bureaucracy.

To summarize, my fear of a bureaucracy complicating health care, is about the same my fear of a rain storm getting getting my glass of water wet.

what naysayers! 85% of Americans are solidly in favor of health re-form - and this was NOT the case the last time health care came around in the 90's. Congress is an alternate reality, for sure, but no one can hide from those numbers much longer. Not Congress persons, not even cranks.

Have you read the bill the House passed - read page 16 - it outlaws private insurance companies!

Now tell me how the Federal government is going to handle the task of insuring all Americans, aliens, and "undocumented guests"?

You have to be a freakin idiot to believe Congress is going to get this right.

And you will not find one iota of evidence in the bill that the "great leaders" of our nation will give up their health care to join with us in the great "melting pot" of universal health care.

Oh, and just a few days ago Rahmbo tried to redefine bipartisanship by indicating that the bill included a lot of GOP ideas - so there have been opposition contributions.

Pay attention!!!

It was OBAMA who said he'd work with THEM, not the other way around. Obama just assumed he could get them to cooperate if he compromised. Those of us on the real left figrued out that's not going to happen a long time ago. Look, republicans are uselss, their a bunch of overgrown children who won't go along with anything that doesn't give them everything they want. Let's pressure the dems to pass healthcare anyway and ignore them. They are useless.

I hope you are ready to eat crow bub because what you are seeing is the death throes of the insurance industry as we know it. Much thrashing about and screaming but ultimately ending in silence.

I predict President Obama will get what he is asking for when he is asking for it. So far, all the evidence indicates I am right and you are wrong. But the beauty if it is, there will be no debate. Either we will get a reform bill, or we won't, so either you are wrong, or I am. And we're going to find out pretty damn soon.

And if I am wrong, I pledge to own up to it. I doubt you will.