I can't wait to watch the GOP's Waterloo, as the party tries to return from exile exactly like Napoleon tried.

Obama will have lead like the Duke of Weelington, though.

The time has come for the American government to make sure Americans can access health care and still afford their everyday lives. To all Congressional representatives who would obstruct President Obama's efforts to make good on one of his campaign promises - your tenure in our nation's august legislative institution is at risk if you continue to blast flak at the process of achieving what we want!

Time will come in 2010 and 2012 to vote the rascals out! Max Baucus, this means you! -Kevo

Rename the bill "Affordable and Comprehensive Health Care Solution that Republicans and some Democrats Oppose because their Corporate Handlers Paid them to Bill".

Republican's , not quite as predictable as the former world leader's Moe , Larry , and Curly were .
He he he !
Just kidding .

98,000 Americans die each year as a result of the care they receive. 45 million Americans without health insurance at all. In any given health care encounter, the chances you will receive all the recommended care are slightly above one in two. And 30 to 50 percent of spending is complete waste, adding no benefit to the patient whatsoever.

If Republicans want to stake their claim on defending the status quo, well, I like our chances.

I want to know when everyone with a news outlet on the left is going to start hammering away at the fact that Congress gets great health care paid for by the government? If it's good enough for those mostly useless SOBs, I bet it's good enough for the rest of us. Both the MSM and the blogospher have been silent about this.

You mean, the Republicans really don't give a flying fuck about healthcare? They just want to stop reform so that the Democrats don't get any good cred for it? HOLY COW! Just wait 'til CNN gets ahold of this!

Throughout this debate, we know where the conservative Republicans stand - no health care reform.

But the problem is the MSM ONLY voices these points couched in words from this RNC memo.

WHERE ARE THE PROGRESSIVE VOICES??? I'm really sick of the RNC framing the debate and the "sound bites" on EVERYTHING! I'm not sure if the libral blogs I read are all about reacting to what they narrowly find on TV as against a progressive health care debate or whether this is ALL that is out there on MSM TV. If so, our political parties are useless.

The Conservative agenda is SO LOUD that it's like a glacier that is hard to push back on. I know that fact the Democratic Party is much more diverse - but really they need to step up and have a progressive health care message - AND IT REALLY NEEDS TO BE SEEN ON TV. I really just don't get it.

"I want to know when everyone with a news outlet on the left is going to start hammering away at the fact that Congress gets great health care paid for by the government? If it's good enough for those mostly useless SOBs, I bet it's good enough for the rest of us. Both the MSM and the blogospher have been silent about this."

Posted by: Jeff II

I'm with you Jeff II - I've been asking the same question for over a year now. What's good enough for them should be good enough for us. Why should they care about the uninsured or underinsured when they themselves don't have to worry?

I don't think these "centrist Democrats" appreciate what a disaster it will be for them to let a tiny GOP minority defeat them with such transparent obstructionism.

The Democrats enjoy a 60-seat majority in the Senate and a 255-seat majority in the House because voters wanted them to enact a progressive, anti-Republican agenda. Yet, even with such small numbers, the GOP is still permitted to control the terms of the debate. And, that is exactly what is happening here. The Democrats, through timidity and sheer stupidity, are allowing the Republicans to keep them from doing what the voters mandated them to do.

If the Dems let the GOP stop healthcare reform, they're finished. They will lose any ability to argue that it is better for their party, rather than for the Republicans, to control congress or the White House. And, of course, this is the Republicans' goal. They want to be able to say to the electorate in 2010 and 2012, The Democrats failed. Give us another chance. And the Democrats are handing them the opportunity to make that case.

It's just pathetic. It makes me sick. Never mind having the integrity to do what they said they would do if given the chance. Don't they have any pride? Don't they like winning instead of losing? I thought everybody liked that. What is it about being losers that they enjoy so much?

Fight, Democrats! Win, dammit! You might actually find out that it feels good.

Because I promise you, caving in the GOP on your signature issue will not make them take it any easier on you at election time. If that's what you think, you're out of your minds. All it will do is fill their nostrils with the smell of blood and make the go in for the kill.

Of note is that the Rethugs continue to attempt creating their own reality through the use of their well-oiled noise machine and echo chamber. Of note also is their lack of subtlety - either out of hubris or desperation. While they stoke the troops with a call to arms to create Obama's Waterloo, they also clearly recognize their own Waterloo in the wings if Obama prevails and we actually set the country on a course towards universal health care.

Even the eternally wrong moon-faced Bill Kristol has the right instinct, for a change, in that the Rethugs have to beat Obama on this one or else they are truly finished. A legion of Sarahs won't be able to put Humpty-Dumpty back together (sorry about the mixed metaphor) if they fall off the wall on this one.

In retrospect, this may turn out to be the battle of the century, unless, of course, talk radio manages to start another civil war.

"I want to know when everyone with a news outlet on the left is going to start hammering away at the fact that Congress gets great health care paid for by the government? If it's good enough for those mostly useless SOBs, I bet it's good enough for the rest of us. Both the MSM and the blogospher have been silent about this."

Well put. And yes, Steve, that means you. As well as Daily Kos, Yglesias, and everyone else.

Of course, the Democrats can pass it right now and would fail to do so only because they have been bought off. I'm all for every feasible measure to whip them into line. But its nevertheless important to hammer the Republicans, to soften them up, to extract a real price.

Two points:

1) The status quo is not an option. I don't mean just morally. I mean it is going to fall apart if we don't fix it.

2) It's not just the credibility of the Democrats that's on the line; it's the credibility of the government. If we can't get healthcare then what, exactly, is the point of Versailles on the Potomac? No bid contracts for Haliburton? Bipartisan fundraisers?

@whichwitch and jeff II
Not to mention, that most of those old codgers would not qualify for health insurance.
Can you see ol' Mavericky McCain trying to qualify with his pre existing conditions.
They all need to go out and see just how compassionate their buddies in the insurance biz are.

I hope Obama has a copy of this and checks off all the talking points off it with a red pen during his meeting today with the odious Blue Dogs. And once they cover every republican talking point I hope he stands up and starts smacking them on the back of their heads with the rolled up papers.

One thing that is admirable about Republicans is that they decide what they are going to do (good or bad) and then they do it, with discipline and uniformity. The Democrats, in contrast, really are a bunch of helpless losers.

I doubt this gives much insight into what republicans are saying in private. They just know that what they're really saying should never be put down in writing and certainly not distributed semi-publicly as a strategy memo. Of course we've already heard the contents. Republican strategy memos are also known as the Fox News script. What they really say in private is surely much more explicit, sad, immoral and still unsurprising to anyone paying attention.

Hey, I just read an account of that horrible, very bad government-run health care they have over in France.

American blogger John Aravosis discovers, while in Paris, that he has a tear in his retina (has had them before so knows the symptoms), gets into a fight with Blue Cross (their deluxe plan for which he pays $420 a month premium) about whether they will pay for treatment and is left with only questions. Decides he'd like to NOT go blind in his eye, so heads to an ER there in Paris, waits only 20 minutes, is examined and given emergency laser eye surgery on the spot since there was indeed a large tear. And the cost to this foreigner? $170 US dollars. Total.

If that's government-run care, let me at it.

OK and while you are waiting in line lets consider that the French pay a standard income tax very comparable to what we pay then on top of that a Value Added Tax every time they buy anything (food included) for a whopping total of approximately 20% tax rate. I bet you would love that too...until you found out that even poor people don't get away without paying the tax. They charge the same tax to everyone.

Of course unlike our government they actually provide something for it. However having lived in France I find the description of the Parisian ER very suspicious. I have see significant waits and have even been required to agree to pay for my own anasthesia when I went in for a cut requiring 10 stitches. Perhaps it has changed in the last couple of years but I would be very surprised.

Haven't we heard it all before?

http://theworldofhowey.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/weve-heard-it-before/

Let's see, the President has a filibuster proof Democratic Senate, a +60 seat margin in the House, a favorable press, a fawning Hollywood, a supportive academia and there is still whining about Republicans.

Makes me wonder what a President Biden would do ?

envisage literatures doxium cardigangirl nigeria falls proud alarm lunches insisted