as I have been saying since Big Pharma cut the original deal

kill the bill

The argument is blah blah "health care reform is hard" as if that were proven to be more true than "the Democratic Party is broken."  We have a party with a significant lack of cohesion on the issues and more important now, no set tactical approach aside from bipartisanship.  The Republican tactical approach is go for broke.

Also this is funny:

Tom Harkin has pretty much caved, although I can't say that I blame him. Reid swung for the fences and struck out. Some people, including myself and apparently including Rahm Emanuel, warned that Reid was taking an unnecessary risk by buckling under to well-meaning progressive pressure to put the public option in the base bill. As we predicted, the bill got picked apart and held up for ransom. We could have had a trigger as a starting point in negotiations. [emphasis supplied]

Given the political power of the insurance industry, the only reason there has been a discussion about health care reform this year is because the carrot of mandates could be dangled.

I do realize the absolute truth in this, but question Obama. He boasted and boasted that the biggest chunk of his campaign donations came from little amounts from millions of people...they were the ones who he was indebted to. Now he is sending out requests for more money from those little people telling them he needs the cash to buy the votes from congress because the lobbyists are out there filling pockets and getting promises.

I'm so frustrated... I just can't stand Obama anymore, I thought he had a spine but he doesn't (btw, a B+?!?! are you friggin kidding me!?!?). And the Democrats in the Senate look like bumbling, impotent insurance lackeys. All this work, all these people depending on them, and they let Joe Lieberman -- of all the people, Joe friggin Lieberman -- call the shots!?!? And they'll all come out of this patting themselves on the back and laughing all the way to the bank.

I was so hopeful after that last election... and it's all gone. I remember Obama bragging about how he's not the first president to work on health care but he's determined to be the last. Damn, I sure hope not.

We know the Dems squandered a huge opportunity to put together a good, solid bill , and that, instead of giving away all the good stuff in the interest of the Holy Grail of getting 60 votes, they could have held reconciliation over the GOP's and Blue Dogs' heads, and threatened to make it even more liberal if they didn't get on board.  

They could have had a little come-to-Jesus meeting with Obama and told him they were going to go for as many marbles as they could, and Obama could either get with the program, be a leader on it, and take credit for it, or risk being seen as being as obstructionist as the Republicans, and be blamed for its failure: his choice.

The truth is that Obama was never going to be the catalyst behind reforming the system, no matter how many summits he held or speeches he gave; that was clear to me from the beginning, when he talked about health care in terms of our needing a "uniquely American" system that wasn't too "disruptive."  

He truly does not get it, and he didn't have enough people - or maybe any people - around him who did; when you surround yourself with Wall Streeters and think the way to fix the system is to get the advice of representatives of the industry that broke it, the kinds of solutions you get are not the kind that actually solve the problems and help people.  When you go behind closed doors and work out deals with the industry, your loyalty is to the deal, not to the people; I don't care how many times he invokes his dying mother, the truth is that I think he sees us the same way the insurance industry does, and that is not the mindset one needs to reform a broken system.

[When this passes, it will become clear that Congress is no longer the sovereign of this nation. Rather, the corporations dictating the laws will be.

I understand the temptation to offer 30 million people health care. What I don't understand is the nonchalance with which we're about to fundamentally shift the relationships of governance in doing so.

You know the drill but I'll say it anyway as quickly as I can:  We need campaign finance and media reform to break the vicious cycle between campaign contributions spent on campaign advertising which keep politicos in the pockets of not only corporations but big media, and keeps the media denigrating politicians (for entertainment ratings) so the general public is kept ignorant and never takes the system seriously enough to realize we are dying of it. We're trapped by these two major reform imperatives before we get to square one of HCR. We're about to be whammed in the puss with a possible Supreme Court ruling (FEC v Citizens United) that might allow corporations to directly fund election campaigns and most of the brightest people on the planet don't know how to crack the nut of "corporate personhood," or get the SC to crack it.

So, first things first. After fresh Dem blood elected under the frame of `priority of the public interest' or `putting people first' (essential Dem platform), fix campaign finance and reform media ownership, provide free air time for candidates, open up more public information channels, etc, then bring along legislation for single payer (and energy, environment, education, etc) once we've paved the way for serious policy in the public interest (No more Mr Presonality, please, no more hollow logo/superbrands).

The frames are already standing there. Obama has handily made clear how dishonest private insurers are. One of our best Talk Lefters (Anne) recently pointed out the simple but powerful argument that "with unemployment rising at the start of Obama's term, that would have been the perfect opportunity to disconnect health care insurance from employment." We could have inserted single payer into that slot, not as a health plan but as an economic plan.

We still can.

Plus some other junk.

Democrats will have enough votes to pass healthcare reform in the Senate by next week, said Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday.

Durbin defended concessions made by Democrats to win over centrists' votes, and rejected using the budget reconciliation process to force through a more aggressive health bill.

"We are moving toward 60 -- we think we'll have it by next week," Durbin said during an appearance on MSNBC. "There's so many positive things in this bill, I think we see our way to pass it and make things significantly better for most families."