How come we can kill the bill and start over...

[rucky]

but we can't pass the bill and modify it?

(or vice-versa, if that's your preferred tactic)

What are the chances of each scenario succeeding?

:shrug:

[eridani]

1. How come you can't get a better deal from your blackmailer--

--after you've made the first payment?

[hayu_lol]

2. Patchwork won't make the grade on this bill...

maybe the 2nd time around, the fools in DC will pay attention to the bill and not to their photo ops and posturing.

SINGLE-PAYER NATIONAL HEALTH PLAN.

[rucky]

3. How can you end a hostage situation...

by killing all the hostages? Technically, you can, but...

[NJmaverick]

5. very good analogy

[MNDemNY]

8. How true!!

[el_bryanto]

10. Faulty analogy

It assumes that the blackmailer is the only participant in the game. But of course Joe Lieberman (or Ben Nelson or Olympia Snow) isn't the only player in the game. Nor is the playing field likely to remain completely smooth.

Bryant

[eridani]

13. There has to be a victim, too

More than one blackmailer doen't change the issue.

[el_bryanto]

17. Blackmail is a negotiation. Is Lieberman going to remain in as strong a position as he is now?

Forever? Seems unlikely. I hope he doesn't at any rate.

Bryant

[eridani]

24. I was thinking of the insurance companies as the blackmailers n/t

[NJmaverick]

4. Passing the bill and modifying it has a much greater chance of success

than to kill it and try and start over. First off the Dems are likely to have less members after the 2010 elections (especially if the GOP can crow about the do nothing Dems and their inability to get things done) secondly healthcare has been historically impossible to pass. So the chances of anyone wanting to take it on after it was defeated would be slim and none. No HCR in our generation.

[Laelth]

9. It's going to have to happen on a state-by-state basis.

The current system is unsustainable, and everyone knows it. Change will come, eventually, UNLESS we pass the disastrous bill that's currently on the table.

California will probably pass single-payer on its own in 2011. All they need is a Democratic Governor. The legislature has already passed the bill. Schwarzenegger vetoed it. Once California has single-payer, most (if not all) states will follow suit.

It's likely that if we pass a new law now, the new law will preempt single-payer, i.e. the Federal law will preempt state law and prevent states from enacting a single-payer system.

THIS is what the health insurance companies fear. THIS is what brought them to the bargaining table. THIS is why they are not fighting Obama's tepid reforms, and THIS is why it is extremely important that we do not pass any health insurance reform bill this year.

Let's not settle for a bail-out of the health insurance industry. Let's insist on the eradication of it. In all likelihood, California will lead the way in 2011 ... if we can just give them time.

Canada got its single-payer system one province at a time. That seems to be the way it will have to happen in the U.S.

:dem:

-Laelth

[NJmaverick]

19. The problem is the large federal health care programs like

Medicare and Medicaid. Any state solution would have to face these outside programs. As for California, how would they be able to pay for any programs? I understand they are in a financial crisis that isn't getting better anytime soon.

[Laelth]

21. California has had no problem selling bonds to cover its deficits.

That's really not a big problem. Admittedly, California will need a waiver from federal ERISA law in order to enact this legislation, but that exactly what Kucinich's amendment was designed to do--allow states to enact a single-payer system if the chose to. Nancy Pelosi, probably under direct orders from Obama, stripped that amendment from the House bill.

The bill we are considering now is precisely designed to PREVENT any state from enacting a single-payer system.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Fire1]

15. +1000.

[TCJ70]

6. Because in our current political climate...

...passing any bill gives people, and our representatives, a sense of completion. That sense of completion will probably end up meaning true reform is viewed as finished. Piecing together something over time may have worked in the past, but do we really have that kind of confidence in our representatives today? I know I don't. Besides the elimination of pre-existing condition discrimination, I see no good coming out of this bill...and that's reason enough, for me, to oppose it.

[pampango]

7. I don't think anything, start-over or modify, will happen til 2011. The prospect then depend on

next year's election. With the economy in the tank, that's going to be a bigger issue than health care. I don't like our chances to have a more progressive congress in 2011, but we can always hope and work for it.

[salguine]

11. Because once it's passed, it'll never get modified. Haven't you been watching the

whole thing and seen, with your own eyes, the kind of people we're talking about?

[rucky]

12. I've been watching. Which is why I asked the question.

What makes you think we can start over from scratch?

With the Senate we have now, I don't see any choice but to eat the shit sandwich, and never forgive or forget the people who put us in this position.

[salguine]

23. I think the whole reason we've ended up in the place we're in is that too many people,

for far too long, have been willing to just eat the shit sandwich, as you say.

"I don't see any choice but to eat the shit sandwich, and never forgive or forget the people who put us in this position." Let's see how that'll play on Congress. Your Senator hands you a shit sandwich, which you dutifully eat. You make it known to him that you won't forgive him. I'm sure your lack of forgiveness will trouble him deeply as he rides to reelection on a wave of insurance company money.

You wanna tie on your bib and chow down, bon appétit. I just won't be joining you at the picnic. I'm not eating any more shit sandwiches.

[Fire1]

18. So, with these SAME people you think they will entertain this

issue again! It will be game, set, match. OVER.

[TorchTheWitch]

14. yeah, let's cut our hair with a clam shell with our eyes closed

and THEN maybe we'll get around to bringing in a hairdresser with a pair of scissors... if we can afford it... if we can find a hairdresser... what are scissors?

[spanone]

16. if we kill the bill that's what it is...D E A D... it won't come up again for decades

[Laelth]

22. Good. The Federal Government should stay out of this if what we have now is the best we can do.

Canada got its single-payer system one province at a time. That seems to be the way it will have to happen in the U.S.

:dem:

-Laelth

[OnyxCollie]

20. Mistakes have been made.

But that's old ground, and we need to be looking forward, together.

After the past eight years, are you still so gullible to take an IOU?