How does the Money Party weigh in on this? Probably business as usual. Hence no mention of single payer option which is, of course, the fix for health care insurance for America.

"Business as usual" holds America hostage.

Of course the Republicans are upset, they don't want real reform, only a bogus bill that perpetuates the current failed system where people go broke and bankrupt paying for insufficient coverage from private insurers.
If Republicans are angry it must be good for the American people.

Republicans (and Democrats unduly influenced by health industry dollars) are never going to allow the public option. This particular fight will be politics at its most obscene. Knowing this, and having fought for and having won reconciliation for the final legislation, shows prescience and savvy.

The process will hopefully spotlight Republicans and these wayward Democrats as the bought-and-paid for politicians that they are between now and the vote. Expect many Obama press conferences along the way to educate the easily swayed who would normally, viscerally respond to the inevitable desperate Harry and Louise media push.

How hard would it be for every Democrat on tv to say something like "clearly, the Republican party is determined to oppose any healthcare reform that challenges the immense profitability of the private sector." They don't really have to make statements beyond that about the Dem position IMO-- just make sure that the GOP is linked with protecting corporate profits at all costs, which is absolutely true and generally assumed by the public anyway.

GOP and healthcare: profits, corporations, cartels (i.e., price-fixing), fear of competition, unaccountable private bureaucracies, etc. It's not that difficult to link them all.

Go for the strong bill! And after it has become a huge success, which seems inevitable when you compare the current US system with those of other nations, the republicans will be sorry that they didn't vote for it. Their constituency won't be happy about this.

You see, no matter how often how carefully the Republicans explain it, President Obama just doesn't get it. He thinks that that, just because the Democrats won the last election, that they should run the government.

Of course, Grassley and Broder and all, they understand that White Male Conservatives are supposed to be running the country, and the laws are supposed to be there to protect respectable businessmen and their money from the liberals, the unions, and other trash.

They've been very patient with those uppity Democrats, but at some point, enough is enough! Those people need to learn their place.

How the f*** are the obstructionist Reassholecans (including Nelson/Bayh) dominating the discourse on this one? We're talking about the fundamental right to adequate health care vs. obscene profits for one of the most amoral, venal operations known to mankind - insurance corporations. When did it become "conventional wisdom" that it's ok to skim obscene profits from people's disease and disability? How did the welfare of a tiny fraction of the nation's workforce come to outweigh the health and well being of fifty million Americans? Rhetorical questions, in a game of degraded rhetoric. I love my country - born and bred in the US of A - but sometimes the bullshit that passes for 'debate', particularly when people's lives are on the line, makes me sick to my stomach. Public, affordable health care is a no brainer; the Dems control both chambers and the executive, yet the Rethugs have a death grip on the mic? C'mon, Benen, either you're on the bus or off the bus on this one.

Elections have consequences.

if the insurance mafia successfully buys off Congress (as terraformer seems to know psychically already) and the dems dont grind out the first -- if flawed -- public health bill for US citizens, the repercussions will be massive.

everywhere i look and nearly everyone i talk to signify to me that this health care policy better be the real god damn deal and not be another 1000 cut torture device that just ends up taking money to insurance companies... again.

it wont just be the repugs looking their usual piggy selves, the dems will lose a great deal of support, as will obama. dramatically...

obama and the dems need to know that another smoke and mirrors piece of bullshit "health reform" will be a powerful negative message to the country.

if the insurance companies (blue fuckin' cross of north carolina, i'm lookin' at you) dont get it, they too are looking at bad times.

I was very interested to see an article on the whole health care debate this morning. What was interesting was what the article didn't contain, any indication that private health care plans are better for patients and citizens.

The really stupid thing is for the majority of businesses in the country a strong reform of the health care situation only helps them. It would seem that the republican oppostion to this is only based on the very narrowest of interests. Another brick in the wall for the death of the republican party.

Oh, Conrads Ghost -- how naive. It doesn't matter if all the Repukes were voted out -- the corporate media would just let former Repukes dominate the discussion!

What was interesting was what the article didn't contain, any indication that private health care plans are better for patients and citizens.

Because no honest person actually believes that. The only ones who say otherwise are insurance industry shills. Even many of them won't actually say it, only scare tactics about the supposed evils of the Canadian or European systems.
Let me tell you, if the system in France was so godawful, they would have been protesting in the streets years ago. They protest about everything over there, the sign of a healthy democracy, IMO. The fact that there are no massive protests/demonstrations means that it works.

A matter of semantics? The President is still not convinced Single Payer is politically feasible. The RepuGs only want a Single Preyer Plan with the insurance industry being that single preyer.

Republican anger is a quirky thing. They weren't angry when Bush turned the surplus into a deficit. They didn't even get mildly incensed when it became clear that he'd forsaken success in Afghanistan for a quixotic lunge at Iraq. Doing something concrete to address the fact 15% of Americans have no health care gets them right up on their hind legs.
You'd almost think that their anger was selective and based more on party politics and who'd lined their pockets than any sort of informed notions of governance.

How hard would it be for every Democrat on tv to say something like "clearly, the Republican party is determined to oppose any healthcare reform that challenges the immense profitability of the private sector."

Better: "clearly, the Republican party is determined to oppose any healthcare reform that puts the interest of the American people ahead of immense profits for insurance companies. They are determined that more money in private hands is better than saving lives."

Gandalf @ 9:57, that depends on what you mean by "help". It would force them to compete with a plan that covers anyone, and covers them fairly. Which means they would have to do the same thing if they want to keep their customers. Which means no more massive bottom-line profit by deliberately keeping risky people off their rolls and denying care to those people they do cover.

So they would be forced to streamline their service, really cover anyone, and significantly lower their profit expectations. They're not going to see that as "help". I can't actually blame them for that, but I just don't care. As far as I'm concerned, they're parasites on our health care industry and therefore deserve to be squeezed out of existence.

the republicans will be sorry that they didn't vote for it.

Any "bipartisan" bill is likely to be worse than no bill at all.

And Grover Norquist helped pass how many "bipartisanship" bills?

There's this myth (at least I think it's a myth) propogated by Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, among others, that there are a lot of people who are happy with their private, employer-provided insurance. If these people really do exist, I believe it's because they don't understand the benefits of the alternative--most likely because of the effectiveness of the scare tactics of the Republicans. One of their biggest, "Do you want gov't bureaucrats making decisions about your heathcare?" Well, it beats having profit-motivated insurance executives making decisions about my healthcare.

Shade Tail I was referring to non-insurance businesses.

OF COURSE Republicans do not want a public option - why would they support something the American People overwhelming want: Real Choice in Health Care. This is the most interesting thing about the Minority. They have no problem operating from a position of Tyranny. The public is not allowed to have what it wants when it flies in the face of Multi-National Private Interests.

I'm so sick of their BS; when will the Rightwing Party be small enough to drown in the bathtub.

Nelson gets big money from health insurance companies, Bayh's wife gets mega money for working for them, who do you think they support?
Keep contacting the senators involved and complaining, that is what I am doing, telling them if they mess up our chances on this not to expect to get elected again.By now they must really know (and hate) my name!

I would suggest that any bill that passes with more than 51 votes including Biden's simply wasn't strong enough.

If Obama does nothing else in his entire presidency, finally creating a decent, universal, publicly-financed healthcare plan would make him the greatest president since at least FDR, if not Lincoln. And it is vital that system be truly universal, cost-effective at least to the degree of eliminating useless bureaucratic overhead, and offer a wide and rich set of services. The bill should be as strong as it can possibly be made - meaning Obama should sacrifice every vote necessary to get every extra feature possible into the final bill. On the plus side, if he does so he'll be lionized forever. No one will ever say "Obama was a great president because he got 67 votes on a weak healthcare bill!", and no one will ever say "the healthcare bill that passed with 53 votes was good, but I sure wish it had been weaker so it would have passed by a bigger margin". What they'll remember is that something did get passed, and was either good or bad on its actual merits - not the margin of unnecessary votes above a majority.

Obama should tell GOP politicians, "I'll drop the public option as soon as you give up your government-sponsored healthcare".

[crickets chirping]

What Kevin T. Keith and Stetson Kennedy said. But I'd add this Steve, not enough is said about the enabling Dumocrats--not just the Dinos but the mainstream and, even the liberal, who have allowed the Rethuglicans to have a say and who have surrendered on single payer and a decent public option. They are just as much an obstacle to fixing this problem. They are bought and paid for and need to be threatened by their constituents that the votes will not be there for them to perpetuate their power and place on the gravy train if they side with the force$ of the status quo.

I guess that means no health care bill then because without a solid (not neutered) public option there is no support from the population. If the democrats use "bipartisanship" as an excuse to gut the public option and pass a bill that does little more then force everyone to buy inflated health insurance then they will pay the consequences and be blamed. passing a bad bill with republican support is worse for the dems then passing a good bill without republican support.

Many people *are* happy with their employer-sponsored insurance. That "government-sponsored" insurance that Federal employees have is an employer-sposored set of choices of private health insurance just like the plans provided by most large employers.

That many people are afraid of losing something they are happy with is the "Harry and Louise" lever that turned the public against the Clinton plan.

Now is the right time to counter that for several reasons. There are two fundamental problems with our system: Costs are much too high and too many people get left out. Skyrocketing premiums, co-pays and the like are making the first point clear in a way that it wasn't 15 years ago. The Bush economy being lousy for most working people even before the current economic crisis means that more people than ever have spent some time without insurance. And the deep recession both adds to that and makes people who still have jobs and insurance they are happy with face the possibility that it might not always be so.

Republicans would not even have a health care ins reform bill at all except one subsidized by tax payer dollars to increase private ins profits.

The only America they represent is a corporate America.

Republicans will only allow a 'public option' that they can prove won't work...nothing for the good of the people.

This means the race is on to load the public option with consumer-fisting features to make it expensive, unreliable, frightening, and demeaning. The industry will accept government insurance if it's even worse than the licensed predation we have now.

If the GOP really wanted to be able to push back on health care reform, they shouldn't have demonstrated that they intend to vote no on everything. That their idea of bipartisanship is to give them exactly what they ask for and lots of it.

By this point they have made clear that they will not compromise. And they have made it clear to the American people that this is their approach. Americans want health care reform. And the GOPs antics are not going to dissuade them.