So what does the Public Option support of 45+ Senators mean NOW?

[saracat]

Was it a meaningless gesture to allow the House to take the fall for not providing a PO or was it an attempt to have it both ways supporting the Public Option after voting to eliminate it?????

[PBS Poll-435]

1. 15 more and we are ready to go!

:woohoo:

[Oregone]

2. What does it matter?

Either you get it or you dont want to. At this point...what does it matter?

[saracat]

4. Why shouldn't it matter? Or does nothing matter at all?

I would like to know the answer.

[Oregone]

6. Well, what will be will be, and what people don't care about they wont care about

So, let it be, I guess. Maybe I just had an epiphany

[Political Heretic]

13. Dude... regroup :)

:hug:

[Oregone]

14. Sometimes I think: "In a democracy, people get...."

You know the rest.

[regnaD kciN]

3. For the moment, nothing...

...but this is the beginning, not the end, for HCR (and the public option and/or Medicare buy-in) in the U.S.

Public-option advocates would be wise to start laying the groundwork for a future real public option proposal tied to Medicare rates. Not to be introduced now, or during this Congress, but during the interim between the time the full law kicks in four years from now and the mandated penalties take full effect a couple of years later. When people see the price tag for mandated coverage, they're going to demand relief -- and the Democrats will be well-placed to pull a Col. Dreyfuss and declare themselves "shocked...shocked" that the insurance companies didn't bring rates down on their own ;-) , and then pass a robust public option and/or Medicare buy-in via reconciliation -- something the passage of the current bill makes much easier in the future.

[shotten99]

5. I think so, too.

If this doesn't pass, the window of opportunity will close for another good 12-20 years.
After this, it's not going away.

[laughingliberal]

17. Let's take a look at the reality of that

In 12 years the insurance companies will have lost 11 million customers a year for 11 years. You really think they'll wait to do any reforms. This was done now as a preemptive bailout before the public realizes they need a bailout. We would have had much more leverage in our negotiations if the public had seen this. And, very quickly, it would have become apparent. The unemployment rate has hit them with larger losses than they anticipated. They've been gearing up to manipulate things before the baby boomers began to escape but they did not anticipate the collapse of the economy and big losses of customers in the 3 years ahead of that beginning. That's why you're seeing the huge premium increases right now.

I guess in poker a good bluffer can clean up. That's what happened here. They needed this bill a lot worse than we did. And they managed to get us begging for their crumbs....again.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Can't anybody do whip counts any more?

That is the BEGINNING of the agitation for the next step.

[laughingliberal]

18. I can

Best we could tell we had 58 votes for the Medicare expansion that Lieberman helped kill. Before that there were somewhere between 53 and 56 for the public option with the state opt out. I'm pretty sure those votes for a PO have gone nowhere.

[Old and In the Way]

8. If they're smart, they'll start soon on a "Medicare option I can buy into" bill

based on what Alan Grayson is proposing. Make it voluntary. Then watch the fun as the majority of Americans run to a socialized medical program. Watch more fun as the teabaggers hang in there with their conviction that private health care is the answer...as their premiums escalate relentlessly to cover the evaporating pool.

Now, if I were Grayson, I'd add a penalty clause that requires latecomers to pay a higher fee to join at a later date. Because there ought to be a cost to those who won't join initially to make the program the most cost effective it could be for all.

[Sebastian Doyle]

9. It means we god damn well hold them to it.

And when we get 50, they pass a damn bill, tell the Repukes and the traitors to fuck themselves, bring in Biden for the tiebreaker if needed, and get some REAL reform done.

[ixion]

10. The Insurance Industry got their wish: the Public Option/ Single-Payer are both DOA

for the foreseeable future.

[laughingliberal]

11. Hard to say. If they did have the votes, Pelosi truly did take one for the team

or she was correct and they didn't have them. Bottom line is we need to not let this fade with passage of the bill. I hope Grayson, Kucinich, et al are going to be pushing. Reid has said he will try to get a vote on a PO under reconciliation in the Senate in the next couple of months. I'll keep calling and writing him. May come to nothing but I'll still give it my best efforts.

[Nikki Stone1]

12. K & R

.

[Faryn Balyncd]

15. K&R

[freddie mertz]

16. K & R. This is day one of the new fight for HCR.

[berni_mccoy]

19. The House removed the PO from the Bill because there was no way it would pass in the Senate.

45+ senators isn't enough. You need 50 + the V.P.

They simply didn't have the votes.

[saracat]

20. THe WH didn't WANT them to have the votes and that is a fact.

Several elected officials have admitted that.The WH is NOT want a PO. Period.

[Edweird]

21. As I recall, Pelosi declared the PO dead the same day Reid said he had the votes.

In other words, THEY HAD THE FUCKING VOTES.