Secession? Time to let the South go? Texas, Florida, So. Carolina, Arkansas, who else wants to leave? Throw in Oklahoma?

Maybe a trial separation - no support (withdraw all fed money) let them go it alone for 6 months and see if they want to keep it that way?

Weasel.

mommy, they yelled at me. i wanna go home.

Mike Ross is in the pocket of the insurance companies and Big Pharma. He is a traitor to his constituents.

He doesn't give shit about sick children in Arkansas.

Mike Ross is a monster.

My guess is wasn't the purple-faced wackos that turned Ross around, but the lobbyists from the insurance industry. That's his real constituency.

No that was before the White House decided to hang him out to dry. Hard to be strong in support when the White House keeps saying it isn't important.

Perhaps, WJC should quietly make it known to Ross that he will use his influence in Arkansas to end his career if Ross does betray his party and the American people.

I don't give a rat's ass what Blue Dog House members think of a public option, I don't think we need their votes. In fact, if voting "no" on such a plan increases their chances of keeping their seats in conservative districts in 2010, I'm happy to see them do it.

But the Senate is a different story. Maximum pressure is needed there to pass a public option. It's a long-shot, but well worth it.

The real Mike Ross: dressed in a clown's outfit, festooned with Corporate Logo buttons, bent over with his Clown pants down, and blowing a party horn as he parades down the corridors in the House of Congress with the all the corporate money coming out of his well used Corporate asshole.

Blue Dog Democrats are the proof of what a black nationalist friend of mine meant 40 years ago when he said he'd rather deal with the KKK than a "liberal", since at least he'd be sure he was dealing with the enemy.

Ross is your typical right winger - say anything but never vote against those who pay your mortgage. How much money did he get this year from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries?

Time for the "Blue Dogs" to go back to the GOP.

@ Rob: The White House does not "keep saying it isn't important." It keeps saying that the ends (cost control, competition, choice) are important and the means are negotiable.

I still think Ross is playing semantic games with the phrase "government-run." If the entity that administers the public option is functionally independent, like the Postal Service, is that "government-run"? What about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? It seems like it would be possible to create something that would pass muster as _not_ government run but still contains the key features of the public option -- by giving him enough cover to say that it isn't "run" by the government.

For instance, the co-op idea (which I personally think is kind of useless) might be a "public option" that isn't "government-run," and Ross could presumably back that. I think other politicians have played similar games around the word "administered." So it might be possible to throw this Blue Dog a bone by tinkering with how the agency would be run.

I mean, like everyone else my first reaction is to tell the guy to fuck off and shut his fool mouth. But his repetition of "government-run" is odd, and I think it's probably significant.

Health Care is a MORAL ISSUE! Health care is eo help our fellow Americans!
Mike Ross prefers to side with the AMORAL sociopathic republicans. That means he cares not one wit for Americans. Mike Ross just for his $$$ providers for re-election.

FlipYrWhig is right, there are some creative ways the Dems can dress-up a public option to make it acceptable to at least some yellow-bellied Blue Dogs.

And, yes, I'm making a distinction that neither Steve nor the reporter on the linked story find all that interesting, and it could be insignificant. But if "public" means "government-run," he could just say "A public option is the wrong direction" or "A government-run option is the wrong direction." The way he hits them both suggests that he might be open to a public option _if_ it wasn't government-run. Whether it's worth trying to convince him is a different matter. It probably isn't. But those are his words, and to me they're more open than Steve or the reporter thinks.

Other blue dogs have not echoed Ross's sentiments. In any event, this is the chance to revoke other elements of the compromise, i.e., basing payments on the Medicare rate of payment (which I'm pretty sure is going to be reversed anyway).

Also, it's time for me to say for the 10,000th time that Medicare has been administered from day one by private parties. The method of administration has become more sophisticated and targeted over time, but it isn't government bureaucrats, by and large, who run the Medicare program operationally. They set and enforce policies for contractors and providers and beneficiaries -- and ultimately, the government does get involved in "ultimate" disputes over benefits, etc., but it's private parties who run the day to day operations of these government programs.

Lord almighty. IS there anyway to start playing hardball with these a**es in the House and Senate ? Who chairs the appropriation committees ? Find the sitting on the fence "blue dogs and give them the facts. GET on board or it will be time to shut down ALL the earmarks to these dope Demos; Shut down the grants: Everything. Get Obey to play hardball. Refer to the NYTimes article today - which state has the best performing medicare health at pretty low costs ???? Wisconsin. Followed by . IA, MN, ND, SD, etc... The worst ? GA, LA, AK, etc. So time to get the south to, umm.. be healthly, and get on board the damn train. Look at the data, you dope. WE SUBSIDIZE YOUR CARE !!!!! FIX IT or forget all that juicy fed $$$ .

But, I suppose, things don't work that way anymore .....

I also can't stand this talk about ejecting Blue Dogs from the party. That's the type of thinking that keeps the GOP in minority. I wish they all could be liberals, but that's never going to happen and they still provide crucial votes.

If a Blue Dog senator wants to vote no on a public option, I don't like it, but that's acceptable. If, however, a Blue Dog supports a GOP filibuster, they must be ejected.

how much insurance industry money is getting. I have a feeling his opposition is in proportion to the campaign donations he is receiving.

Opposing wealth redistribution through taxation is a cornerstone of the Republican political platform. They do not believe, we are told, in coercion and confiscation of property. But they have no problem with redistribution of wealth through monopoly, like health care, or with redistribution through lending trickery and outright usury as with credit cards. This seeming inconsistency is resolved when we accept they are for nothing more than base wealth accumulation by the few.
After WWII taxes were used to build a broad Middle Class. The goal of the "conservative" revolution was never to end abortion or make a godly America, but to turn the table on the Middle Class and reverse the flow of wealth. In America there is no greater flow of wealth from the middle to the top than through the health care spigot.

Ross knows who pays him the bribe money. He was there all along and is happy to keep the New Gilded Age roaring.

I think he'll be stripped of his Committee status if he tries to block anything that Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer try to pass. In fact, I'd bet my money on it.

Yet more proof of what I've said before. If healthcare reform garners majority support from Dems then ideologically speaking it's the same as picking up 4-5 Republican votes 15 years ago. Ross is yet another Republican who is not crazy enough to win a Republican primary so he runs as a Democrat.

It's also further proof that continued 'negotiations' with Republicans is useless. They are ALL further to the right than the Bayh's, Nelson's and Ross's of the Senate.

Does Ross think that if Dems fail to pass a public option, they'll be rewarded by voters? That he will? Or that, as seems more likely, they'll be punished for failing, as in 1994? (He watched the 1994 debacle from the Ark. State Senate.) If Dems are punished for failing, does he imagine he'll be exempted, or can he imagine that, as an incumbent in a marginal district, he'll be one of the first Dems to fail? In short, why doesn't he buy the conventional reading that says the Blue Dogs are the Dems who'd be most threatened by failure?

Or does he expect a public option to pass even without his vote, & hope to get a free ride?

I think Ross wants a free ride. I would allow that for Dems in competitive districts as long as it doesn't sink reform.

A lot of folks seem to be making the point that Ross and other Blue Dogs are risking their seats by standing up for the insurance companies, which is true enough. Keep in mind however that losing their seats would only result in them being outright hired by the same insurance companies. We need to have an honest recognition of the problem.

Don't be fooled by the rhetoric. Ross and many in the blue dog caucus were always anti reform receiving huge donations to their PACs from the priv ins industry...the trick was to not "look" like they were anti reform. Ross's constituents are very much for reform with a public option so all Ross is left with to please his corporate pay masters is to demonize reform using the "option" as the excuse when he knows full well that without a public "option" there is no reform.

He's not fooling anybody. He's being supported by Rahm Emanuel whose purpose is to pretend there is reform while leaving the status quo unchanged just to get that industry money going into dem coffers come election time and not into the opposition's coffers to defeat dems.

Ross might get money but he's going to lose votes big time. He's blatantly sold out and when ever he's out in public THROW HIM PEANUTS 'cause that's what the lobbyist's pet congressman on a leash LOVES.

If Rahm Emanuel ran for president no one would vote for him. If Tim Geitner ran...no one would vote for him either. Friends of a feather....

Ross stands for "Katrina" Health Care because he's paid to.

Read Matt Tahibi's new article in Rolling Stone on HC reform and what these Blue dogs did to the public option...scrapping the reimbursement rate that matched Medicare to making it equal to what private ins would pay so there is no savings what so ever and in fact the public option would pay more especially for meds plus you won't have the choice of buying into the public option if you refuse an employer offered plan...no matter how unaffordable or crappy. You cannot drop your current plan or you will be banned from a public option...plus you will be fined if you don't buy insurance. Blue dogs have sold out to the profiteers at every turn making reform worse than no reform at all...yet they will blame voting against HC reform on the progressives who refuse to accept their pathetic sell out of the people.

If you don't hate Blue dogs by now then you are not a dem.

Blue dogs have torn apart HC reform and put more holes in it that it would be doomed to failure. Tahibi's article should be required reading as it is the only truthful article as to how badly they have destroyed HC ins reform while pretending they stand for reform.

Since I'm sure Ross is incapable of feeling shame and is without an ounce of integrity and now has all the money he could ever ask for after his HC reform performance...I can only pray for irony...the kind that causes a need for HC that just has no answers for him...like instant Karma for the millions his efforts have doomed to destruction.

Ross is a yellow-bellied, blue-dog "Democrat."

Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential - By jacksmith — Working Class

It's not just because more than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% republicans). Basically everyone.

It's not just because according to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. With 79% of seniors supporting creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!!

It's not just because it will lower cost. Because a strong public option will dramatically lower cost for everyone. And dramatically improved the quality of care everyone receives in America and around the World. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.

It's not just because it will save trillions of dollars and prevent the needless deaths of millions more of YOU, caused by a rush to profit by the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!

It's not just because every expert in every field, including economist, and Nobel laureates all agree that free market based healthcare systems don't work. Never have and never will. The US has the only truly free market based healthcare system in the World. And as you all know now, IT IS A DISASTER!

It's not just because providing or denying medically necessary care for profit motivations is wrong. Because it is WRONG! It's professionally, ethically, and morally REPUGNANT!, Animalistic, VILE and EVIL.

THE REASON THE PUBLIC OPTION IS ESSENTIAL:

The public option is ESSENTIAL because over 200 million of you are trapped in the forest of the wolves. Which is the forest of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! With no way out except through needless inhumane suffering, and DEATH. While the wolves tear at your flesh, and rip you limb from lib. Then feast on your lifeless bodies like a dead carcase for transplant parts.

At the most vulnerable times of your lives (when you were sick and hurting), millions of you have had to fight and loose cruel, but heroic battles. Fighting against the big guns of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! in the forest of the wolves. All because you have no place else to go. You have no other CHOICE!

But the PUBLIC OPTION will give you someplace safe to go. And it will give us someplace safe to take you. The public option will be your refugium (your refuge). Where the wolves cannot get at you when your down, hurting, and vulnerable. Where everyone who needs it can find rest, security, comfort and the care they need. Protected by the BIG GUNS of We The People Of The United States. THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE AND COUNTRY ON EARTH.

This is why it is so critical that we do not lead another 50 million vulnerable, uninsured Americans into the forest of the wolves, without the protections of a Strong Government-run public option. We The People Of The United States MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN to any more of our fellow Americans. If healthcare reform does not contain a strong public option on day one. YOU MUST! KILL IT. Or you will do far more harm than good. And millions more will die needlessly. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.

To those who would continue to obstruct good and true healthcare reform for the American people, and who seek to trap millions more vulnerable Americans in the forest of the wolves. We will continue to fight you. We are prepared to wage all out war against you, and will eagerly DESTROY! you. Time...is...UP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! No Co-op's! No Triggers!

Healthcare reform can be the GREATEST! Accomplishment of our time and century. A time when future generations may say of us, that we were all, AMERICAS GREATEST GENERATIONS.

BUT WE MUST ACT!

I therefore call on all my fellow Americans and the peoples of the World. To join us in this fight so that we may finish becoming the better America that we aspire to be for everyone.

SPREAD THE WORD!

I have been privileged to be witness as many of you fought, and struggled to take your first breath, and your last breath on this earth. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Life is precious.

Whatever the cost. WE! MUST SUCCEED.

God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings

jacksmith — Working Class

Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)