this particular sausage-making has a real stench to it. the disingenuous are all lit up making the whole endeavor quite painful and depressing.

at the end of the day, this is the obama administration's error in action: fetishizing bipartisanship on this bill has weakened the effort, not strengthened it, and that was obvious to anyone whose vision was not clouded by kum-ba-ya fantasies.

still, we are at the point where the dems need to hang together lest they hang separately, and the awareness of that is likely to improve the bill to a decent level.

Weren't there 5 committees total working on healthcare plans? What happened to the other 4 that were ready prior to Baucus'? Why is it all Baucus all the time when his plan seems so putrid?

It's nice that everyone is willing to kiss their sister and point out the "potential" in BaucusCare, but you know it's just a shitty piece of work when a farking Republican tells you you're cutting corners too much.

ckelly, I've been asking the same question for a long time and no one seems to have an answer.

Another thing that would make a trigger somewhat acceptable is the following. The program isn't supposed to go into effect for another four or five years (2013?), so that should be plenty of time for the insurance companies to get their acts together. If they haven't done it by the time the program goes into effect, the trigger is pulled right away. Anyone who believes that the insurance companies have any intention of getting their acts together believes in the tooth fairy.

Who gives a flying crap about Baucus & Snowe anymore.

Just get it done
with 50 plus 1

My thought exactly ckelly. Why are we spending time talking about "Improving the Baucus Bill" when there are 4 (?) other bills on the table. Why buy into that logic at all? Why aren't we talking about limiting as much as possible the incorporation of the Baucus bill aspects into the actual final bill?

I'm fine with a trigger. So long as it is applied retroactively :)

You want to make the Baucus bill better?

Throw it into the shredder, and support Medicare for all.

Boy, that was tough...

As others have said: four out of five plans include the public option. Exactly why is it that Baucus get to decide whether or not it's included in the finance committee proposal or not ?

Baucus and conservatives are offering the possibiity of more subsidies and a "trigger" that will never be pulled, at least not without a fight that will be as difficult as the one right now to include a public option. It can't be emphasized enough that when you subsidize the present system of private insurance companies, you are subsidizing a system that we all agree is hopeslessly corrupt and unsustainable. I realize that you might provide some real benefits to real people who both need and deserve them, but you are not providing any mechanism to genuinely reform the system. In other words, you are prolonging and protecting the existence of the status quo. This, by definition, is not reform.

I love how Baucus says he'll iron out differences with Democrats considering he's supposed to, um, be one.

His idea of ironing out the differences with the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee was basically to cave in to their every demand. (And still get the finger.)

And speaking of Snowe, it's also worth noting that Democrats aren't the only ones demanding that Baucus improve the subsidy rates. Snowe told the NYT, "[T]here would have to be more subsidies" in the proposal.

This sort of crap really pisses me off: folks being eager to find ways to assure that EVERYONE can send $$$$ to the insurance ghouls, but not an ounce of interest in holding down COSTS, and thus the volume of $$$$ sent.

more from Krugman: Of course, those who insist that we must have a single-payer system — Medicare for all — won’t accept any plan that tries, instead, to cajole and coerce private health insurers into covering everyone. But while many reformers, myself included, would prefer a single-payer system if we were starting from scratch, international experience shows that it’s not the only way to go. Several European countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands, have managed to achieve universal coverage with a mainly private insurance system.

His query: despite being a bad bill, will it nevertheless be just good enough to vote for?

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