Dan,

I do my best to stomach reading DailyKos and FDL as often as I can to see what the debate is on the left. One idea getting traction, you can read about this option more at Politico, is that the House would pass the Senate bill as is, or at least promise to do so. Then the Senate would take up bills through committee to “fix” the first bill; they’d add Medicare/Medicaid expansion, get rid of the Cornhusker Kickback, add “the millionaire’s tax” and possibly even a public option to the mix. They’d then pass THAT through reconciliation and then the House would pass the first Senate bill and do the fix immediately afterwards.

I think it’s insanely risky to attempt this as the reconciliation process would last through February, but if the Dems are determined enough to march every last member of their caucus off the cliff, they CAN pull this off.

They are locking the doors and will burn the whole democratic party down. The socialists don’t see anyway to save Obama so they will just blow it all up. They cannot compromise – it is not in their DNA. This year will be great to watch.

I read a short post somewhere that Mitch McConnell declared something about “meet in the middle” in the past few days re: healthcare.

I am stupefied if that is the case. Could it be we are doing all this grassoots work out here only to have him still be so deaf to our cries of “be the party of HELL NO!” What *I* want is for the Repubs to take to the mic and loudly proclaim “we will work with the Dems to pass 1. tort reform. then when that is passed 2. sales across state lines. then when that is passed 3. HSA and when that is passed 4. no mandates then when that is passed 5. pre-existing conditions. One at a time.

Dan, appreciate always your reporting

but what they want to do is subsume 1/6 of the US ec., turn drs. and nurses into union shills, force hospitals and clinics to perform abortions without limitations, and bump off the older population because soon we will be 1/3 of the electorate. In 10 years when 1/2 the baby boomers are on Soc. Sec./Medicare, the boomers combined with WW II babies will be about 100,000,000. The country won’t be able to afford us, but instead of invoking death panels, Cong. needs to find a restructuring of the big entitlements to make them more financially stable.

Health care could start with 1) portability of ins., 2) nation-wide ins. market without state restrictions, 3) major tort reform and caps on “pain and suffering,” 4) some leeway in allowing prior conditions to be covered (but they are really death to ins., because ins. is based on risk, and no risk is involved if a client is already sick), 4) open COPRA to all–there’s a “universal” program already in place but now just covers the unemployed, 5) means test Medicare (and allow people to opt out of it with their own ins.) and 6) lower eligibility for Medicaid back to the poverty line.

I would also think it would be reasonable to tax med. ins. benefits above a certain $$ (even tho’ it would likely affect me as an NEA member) because the med. ins. benefit compensation is a kind of pay or salary in another form.

But what Obamanation and crowd want is not health care reform or saving the planet with krap and trade. They simply want more power, more command and control, and more hands and feet in what’s left of the capitalist pie.

I was reading on some of the Daily Kooks posts that Nancy mentioned she has a year expiration date on the Senate Bill. I think they may be thinking of voting on it after the Nov. elections with all these promises of a fix later.

of the Dems that crossed over and voted for Brown, as being touted they want the public option? That seems worrisome to me, a reading like that as regards the broader picture of HC reform. Did those people actually vote for Brown because they think he will bring that to pass or is it misleading?

if they would just do what Zero said he would do: Put it on CSPAN; live streaming of the committee negotiations, and complete transparency.

Fat chance! They can’t do that because it would be just as toxic to them as what they’re doing now. Like the Kamikaze pilot, they have to take out their target when they self-immolate. Considering they stand the chance to get their hands on all that money – one-sixth of the U.S. economy – to the liberals it’s worth it.

in keeping us up to speed on these complex ins-and-outs.

If McConnell starts his reaching out across the aisle, let’s meet ing the middle garbage I swear I’ll tear my thinning hair out!

BTW, in El Rushbo manner, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the AP story referenced at the bottom of your Yahoo news link: initial jobless claims UNEXPECTEDLY rise. It’s always so unexpected, this bad news…

there’s not enough House votes to pass the Senate bill.

At this point I just want the HC re-start or negotiations to drag until November. At this point I don’t trust the RINO’s anymore than these Dems. It will be just like the GOP to snag defeat out of the hands of victory and pass some kind of compromise HC bill. I don’t trust them to be conservative enough to do that. I hope the lesson learned from this by the GOP is that the very second they get back into the majority they need to craft some kind of sensible HC bill and not ignore it anymore. True that there are bigger fish to fry and most folks are happy with their HC but we can’t let the Dems try this nonsense ever again. We need to come up with a bill that does what it’s supposed to do and help that 10 mil or so of the population that needs the coverage…and nothing else! Don’t ever give the Dems the chance to try to take over a huge chunk of the private sector and the economy in this way ever again. This so-called HC bill was never about HC, it was about a power grab and a socialistic agenda by the Dem party.

U know like GW had between 2003-2007?
tax cuts full take home pay, ditch the current tax code?
Oh never mind

My take?

The senate fiddles with their bill enough to calm the jittery nerves of House members that don’t like what they see now.

The House passes it.

It goes back to the senate where Scott Brown will be the vote that kills it.

New Democrat and MSNBC talking point just before the November elections…

…’We tried to get you health care reform America, but those greedy obstructionist Republicans blocked it.’

Where are u?

If I were in the Republican leadership, I would pretend to be open to a compromised health care bill just to drag this thing out a few more months, than just shut it down. The Lucy and Charlie Brown scenario. I suppose it’s a risky strategy, if someone like Olympia Snowe flips, Brown is no longer a factor.

I think though Brown winning big in MA will convince even the most liberal Republican from the bluest of states that ObamaCare is a political loser.

Looking at this through a purely political lens, if the Democrats switch gears and start focusing on issues like taxing big banks, financial regulation, and job creation bills, that will unfortunately be much more popular with the American public at large than ObamaCare. Republicans should keep Democrats stuck in their current ditch.