Carter didn't bother to sell himself as successful where he was not successful.

I'm beginning to see the light when I consider economic recovery without the creation of jobs, so perhaps very serious people like fred hiatt will tell us how great health care reform is without a public option.

The mandate is, and has always been, a bailout for the insurance companies because it guarantees them a market.

That's why the leadership in both parties supports the mandate (just like the leadership in both parties supported the bailouts for the banksters).

So, if there's a mandate that everybody has to buy insurance -- and with the IRS acting as collection agent -- that's a guaranteed revenue stream for the insurance companies (from which both parties will collect a cut in exchange for preventing future "incremental" reform).

And if there's no public option to "keep the insurance companies honest" (as if that were even possible) then the insurance companies are free to game the system to maximize profit, just like now -- as it is their fiduciary responsibility to do.

So, just as the financial crisis was used to reinforce the power of the banksters, so the health care crisis will be used to reinforce the power of the insurance companies.

To listen to some Democrats talk, reform without a public option is scarcely worth doing. This is crazy.

This is a bailout for the health insurance industry nothing more nothing less. Once the baby boomers begin retiring, they are going to lose a significant amount of business. The LA Times mentioned this in an article back in June. The insurance companies need new customers to make up for the losses in baby boomer customers that will go onto Medicare. Yes, they'll have Medigap supplemental insurance, but that's still nothing compared to the insurance they offer baby boomers now. It's the demographics stupid!!

The insurance companies have already won this battle. Check out this article from Businessweek from a few weeks ago:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b4143034820260.htm

It ain't the quarterback.

I know.  It sounds like he's calling audibles but that's just lip synching.

A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see.

But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."

---Obama speaking to the Illinois AFL-CIO, June 30, 2003.

Lieberman... 'the gang of six are our great hope, they agree on 75%, let's pass that, wait until the economy improves, incrementalism, focus on insured over uninsured, etc.  (he doesn't mention cost control)

Cardin... 'focus on reducing cost.  A public option will do that.'

Lugar... Obama made a mistake bringing up health care in this economy.  Bring it up later. (ha)

I would agree with any that refuse to give their money to the Corporacrats in the insurance industry.  It takes just a little common sense to figure out how to reduce costs for the nation.

So, by their mid-late 30's, a doctor can finally start earning a living, at the bottom of the totem pole of whatever hospital/practice they join.

To get to this position doctors have forfeited anything resembling a normal life, as 80 hr. workweeks, at virtually no pay, or rather, barely subsistence pay, is not the exception, but the norm.

And to make the job even more enticing, new doctors carry a school debt load of several hundred thousand dollars with which to begin their careers.

So, you have every right to be angry, but please vent your anger where it's appropriate.
Doctors aren't the bad guys; Wall Street are the bad guys.

We spend 2 ½ Trillion on health costs; "care" is 1 1/4 Trillion; Wall Street, administration, and profits, the other 1 1/4 Trillion.

Finally, pointing out anecdotal examples: "I know a doctor who.....," or my nephew, the insurance agent...." Is just nonsense, completely unhelpful, and the dictionary definition of a canard.
Bottom line: We spend $8,000/person for healthcare, inferior to Europe & Asia, who spend $4,000/person.

The whole discussion is about paying extortion/welfare to an unnecessary industry, much as the horse & carriage industry was, and which is bankrupting our country.
Cut out the middle man, bring us in line with the rest of the civilized world, and our economy will shoot to the moon.