Elected Republicans are 100% united against the Bill, elected Democrats are 100% for the Bill

[Toots]

Which side should I be on, what a dilema...:shrug: I understand there are many trolls here that badmouth Democrats and Obama on a constant basis, but come on folks. If we lose out on this chance of getting some Health Care reforms you will not see any in your life time..This is a pretty much do or die situation and whatever passes can be made better over time but if nothing passes America loses "Big Time"

[Myrina]

1. this is not health care reform, it is an insurance co giveaway.

1. Employers may no longer have to offer insurance packages to their employees.
2. Citizens HAVE TO BUY some kind of coverage or be fined by the fed.
3. There is no cap on premiums until 2014.
4. There are no punitive measures on insurance companies who deny coverage, deny claims or jack us around.
5. The Admin is now considering taxing health care coverage.

This isn't reform, its indentured servitude to the insurance industry, at the order of the federal government.

[Toots]

2. Bull shit

There are many many many good things in this bill. Granted there are some that might be undesirable but they can be amended over time. If we do not pass a bill now you will never see one at all. Is that what you want? If this bill goes down Democrats will lose elections in a spectacular fashion and will not be in any position to pass anything at all beneficial to America. This has a lot more riding on it than a few bad items in this bill..Doesn't anyone here ever see the big picture?

[TankLV]

3. The only bullshit seems to be coming from YOUR pie hole...

[MadHound]

4. Sorry, but this health care "reform" will destroy me and mine

I'm a teacher, and as an attempt to make up for shitty pay I do have great insurance. Now then I'll have to worry about this excise tax which will do either one of two things, severely lessen the quality of my insurance or have the rates jacked up as they pass along excise tax to me.

Meanwhile women's right to choose will be curtailed no matter whether the Nelson language or the Stupak amendment make it through. Sorry, but I can't go there.

Handing a mandated monopoly over to the insurance companies, with no public option to provide a restraint on prices, is a sure recipe for skyrocketing insurance rates.

There is far more bad than good in this bill, even the ban on pre-existing conditions has a ton of loopholes in it, and that might be on the chopping block as well.

I want to see this POS bill go down, now.

As far as Democrats losing elections, oh well. Quite frankly given the track record of Democrats over the past twenty years, that isn't much of a loss. That proverbial dime's worth of difference has shrunk down to only a couple of cents. Frankly I would rather see the Democratic party go down in flames and some other, more liberal, less corporately corrupt party arise from the ashes. I can't have much sympathy for a party that gave us NAFTA, welfare "reform", MFT status to China, and so much else, while jumping on the Patriot Act bandwagon, the Iraq and Afghan war bandwagon, and are now doubling down, again, on Afghanistan.

You speak of the Democratic party like I should give a shit about it. Sorry, but it's hard to care about a party that stopped caring about me long ago. At this point in time the only political party out there that gives a shit about me and mine is the Green party, which is where my support goes. There are a few individual Dems, on a local basis, that I support, but the party in general can sink into the ocean for all I care.

[laughingliberal]

6. I disagree, somewhat more respectfully than you do, though

Having studied this bill in painstaking detail, I find not one of those "good things" we keep hearing about is really going to happen in the way we are being told it will. There is a loophole for every regulation we have been told will protect us. There is a loophole for rescissions. Remember, being promised your insurance can't be canceled when you get sick? Not true. Remember being promised there would be no annual or lifetime caps? Well, there's no lifetime caps but annual caps are back. No denial or overcharging for preexisting conditions? The ability of employers to charge you many times more for your premiums if you fail to meet goals in 'wellness programs' takes care of that. It, also, btw, allows your employer a level of access to your private health information that most are not comfortable with. This was made possible by a last minute executive order that President Bush signed allowing employers access to your private health information. IMO this order should immediately have been reversed by our Democratic president But it was not and now a hit to our privacy and our wallets sits in that bill compliments of one of my senators, John Ensign. And we've heard not one stand up and suggest we take that out of there. There are far more than 'a few bad things in the bill.' The bill enshrines the for-profit insurance companies into the system for all time. It allows the worst practices of this industry, which we were told would stop, to continue unabated. It does nothing to bring down costs and nothing to slow the rate at which premiums are rising for the next 4 years. By the time we are mandated to purchase the policies they will be quite high. The only control then is the MLR of 85%. This is the level at which Wendall Potter told us the industry felt most comfortable they could manipulate the numbers. It is also not 'affordable.' There are subsidies to help pay for the premium but it will leave many with lower incomes with deductibles they can't afford so they will have a policy but not be able to meet the deductibles in order to ever use the policies. Add to all this the fact that we are taking $500 billion out of Medicare and we have set the stage for Medicare to go further under and Bernanke will be back to talk about 'entitlement reform' probably before most of the bill goes into effect. Look for an all out push to privatize Medicare in a few short years.

The message that we will never have a bill at all if we don't pass this bill is false. This is not 1994. The insurance industry, without reform of the system, will die. They have been losing customers at the rate of millions per year and, with unemployment this high and employers dropping coverage due to rising costs, this can only get worse for them. They have managed to prop up their bottom line by raising premiums but are now reaching the point where they will be at net loss with every price hike. They have reached the point where the rise in the premium price brings them very little increase as they lose more customers who can't afford it. Soon they will see net decreases with premium hikes. Add in the fact that they now stand to lose 11 million customers a year to Medicare, on average, over the next 21 years and we see an industry which can not survive without a bailout. It is not a coincidence that we are addressing health care reform now nor is it a coincidence that the insurance companies 'came to the table willingly' this time. They need reform and they need it soon before the public realizes the insurance companies have few cards to play.If this bill is defeated (call their bluff) we will see them back very soon demanding we reform health care. They don't have 10 years to wait. Our problem was thinking the insurance companies are still where they were in 93 and that we had to make all kinds of concessions in order to get a bill with 'some good' in it. That's false and we're being played.

There is still time for our legislators to make some improvements now. If this bill passes as is you are not going to see it getting 'fixed.' You will, more likely, see it made worse over time. Why would it make sense to anyone that the same bunch who sold out every opportunity to pass a helpful (to the people) bill would come back and 'fix' anything. Many of them threatened to kill it now if it did anything to provide competition to the insurance industry. These guys are going to 'fix' anything? Like they 'fixed' NAFTA? You can bet on that if you like, but you will lose that bet.

As for the Democrats losing the House and Senate, I don't expect they would lose the majorities. They are going to lose some seats regardless. But the bigger point is that I and others who oppose this bill are not responsible for the fact that they wrote a bill that enslaves the American people to a vicious, for-profit industry. They had the opportunity to represent people and chose to represent the corporate criminals. It is on them if they suffer huge losses. It is not my responsibility to save their jobs. It is my responsibility to examine what they are doing and decide if it will help or hurt the people. It is their responsibility to write and pass legislation that represents the voters in order to keep their jobs. I'm not going to sit silently by and make up half truths about this bill to help them keep their jobs. Perhaps they could have been concerned with keeping their jobs when they decided to get all cozy with the industry and hand us over as a fresh crop of victims.

edited typo

[highplainsdem]

9. +1

[OHdem10]

5. It does not help any cause to call fellow Duers name such as Troll.

Disagreeing with a Democrat or Obama is not bashing.
It is disagreeing.

No one is perfect and at times it does appear Obama
is getting some pretty sorry advice and he is taking
it.

The Democrats on the Hill especially in the Senate have
not done very much to bring Liberal/Progressive Love
their way. Too many are DINOs.

[laughingliberal]

8. Yes, quite persuasive, no? nt

[Tim01]

7. Which insurance company do you work for? nt

[lame54]

10. If the repugs hate it - I like it...

But i really don't like it all that much - hopefully congress will improve it