So how come it took so long for the Health Care bill?

[quinnox]

I don't get it. I distinctly remember Obama saying he wanted to take final votes and pass the Heath Care reform at the start of November, and here it is more than two months later and they still haven't got it done?

Why did they take so long to get this thing done, if they had hurried the process then this election today wouldn't have mattered as much as it does.

And further, how come when Bush wins he gets war in Iraq, and billions of tax cuts for the rich, but when the Democrat wins he doesn't get shit?

It makes no sense that the country votes in the Democrats to all three power centers and we don't get anything in return? But when republicans win they get just about everything they want?!

[alc]

1. goals and focus

What is/was the goal? Did anyone ever state a simple, uncompromising goal? I didn't see it. It went from "health care reform" to "health insurance reform". Then we had 5 bills with differences, and no stated goal that must be included in the final. Then there was effort to get different groups on board (pharma, AMA, insurance corps, trial lawyers, AARP, unions, anti-abortion groups, etc) assuming that once they are with it the people will follow (especially if those groups agree to millions $ for ads supporting the plan). Any part of the bills was up for negotiation to get support from these groups.

There needs to be some non-negotiable component that everyone can focus on. Then work out everything else from there. They can even give repubs some things that dems don't like if repubs will agree to the non-negotiable component.

[Pirate Smile]

2. Pretty much all our problems boil down to the fucking Senate.