I think one progressive activist Jane Hamsher was telling progressives to vote against healthcare, which they did in Mass. now we will not get a bill, I guess she is happy now.

I don't understand. The Senate bill is already scaled back. The House has a chance to vote on it. What is the problem.

Why not just have the Senate pass the House bill? Pong-ping rather than ping-pong. It's the superior bill and there are still 60 senators who've already voted once for health insurance reform (for another week or so at least). I'd like to hear them explain how they were for it before they were against it. I imagine Steve is willing to make all kinds of excuses for the Senators though.

Steve Benen should run for public office...he's right on!

The thread that HCR is supposedly hanging by has already snapped. It's now just a matter of watching it fall, hit the ground, and shatter into a bazzilion pieces. The thread broke yesterday when Obama decided not to get actively involved, and moved on to banking reform (which will be filibustered.) Any hope that somebody, anybody, would step in, catch the falling bill, and tie the thread back together disappeared with the SCOTUS ruling. The insurance companies don't even have to pay lobbyists anymore. They just need to THREATEN to inundate a particular congresscritter with ads, and they will own that vote.

Right about now, as horrible as it sounds, dead HCR is the least of America's worries.

Steve - thank you! You are an island of reason in what is quickly becoming a hurricane of idiots. I would lose my mind if not for your reasonable, intelligent and pragmatic approach to this issue.

HCR is, indeed, dead as a doornail. However, Democrats will work hard--very, very, VERY hard--to drag this out for maximum humiliation. Reid and Pelosi, working in loose coordination with the White House, will make sure that Obama's presidency is crippled on all fronts going forward.

November will bring crushing defeats for Democrats, as Americans go to the polls pondering how it is that Democrats, with 60 seats in the Senate, an overwhelming majority in the House, and control of the White House, could not pass legislation on their signature issue.

I fear Tim H is spot on.
Another thing I wonder about the House, did they really think the Senate was going to pass the new bill as negotiated? I would have been very shocked if you could have gotten anything more from the likes of Landy, Leberdope and Nelson. It is quite possible they will get much more from the new path needing only 51 votes. A true master legislator would have a field day with this opening. Someone has a shot at becoming a Congressional legend, hopefully someone will grab the opportunity.

If this were a Republican plan, it would be passed with 51 votes. It is time for the Democrats to play hardball and just pump there Health Care through and be Democrats rather than individual players.

Ah what a difference a week makes.

I leave on vacation and American is hurtling towards a socialist caliphate. I return to a land free once more.

Obamacare is dead liberals. Get over it.

I leave on vacation

Paid trolls get vacations?

I'm a liberal...but i must say....One thing i admire about republicans is that they don't QUIT and they stick together on all issues.

" Americans go to the polls pondering how it is that Democrats, . . . could not pass legislation on their signature issue." Domage @8:34

Because, as Will Rogers said, "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."

And, for the last half century or so, our "Representative Democracy" has devolved into elected officials who only represent those who give them money.

The chances that a slimmed down version would happen this year are in the darkest comedy category. The dems are just dicking in magic rabbit holes now, weighing costs to various scenarios, or how they can minimize the reductions to their bodily member. Like they had any inches to spare.
They are just fucking lost in D.C. Gaawwddd!

Oh, sure, pass any bill flawed to fail, just so you can say "Historic Times".

Steve keeps bringing up another flawed bill which passed as a mark of accomplishment for the Obama Administration. It is the terribly flawed credit card bill. The Sanders option of capping interest rates was discarded and the only thing remaining was an extension of notice. so, individuals could have a few more days in which to purchase their needed Prep H. But, "The Bill Passed" and play some Sousa. Just passing a flawed bill and expecting needed adjustments later does not take into consideration the pending losses in 2010 and, possibly, 2012, when independents will flee many Democratic candidates. The days of "Gloom and Doom with the RepuGs" will return, sadly, as the Democratic leadership has slept at the controls. Instead of high fiving one another for the past year, they should paid more attention to the road blocks ahead of them.

Steven Benen couldn't be more right. The House Democrats need to stop dreaming up more Underpants Gnomes health care strategies and pass the Senate HCR package. After that they can develop reasonable strategies going forward to improve HCR legislation.

Hopefully Churchill was right. The House Democrats will end up doing the right thing after having exhausted all the other alternatives.

Okay, one more time, really gently:

The House cannot pass the Senate bill.

The votes are not there for it. The votes will not magically appear for it. Angry Democrats and angry blogging will not make it so.

You can, maybe, get some Republicans on board for a smaller, more focused bill with some incremental reforms. The problem, as I see it, with what the Times is discussing... is there essentially nothing in there that will bring Repubs over. That would require tort reform at the least, and probably some sort of way to increase choice and competition among insurers - which, to them, is "sell insurance across state lines" which is a lowest common denominator to eviscerating regulations on insurers in states like California, New York and Massachusetts. There is, though, probably some way to square that circle, since Dems would love to increase choice as well.

Look, in case someone thinks I'm a rogue conservative or some timid semi-liberal, I'm not. I believe in single payer. I want massive reforms; the reality is... that's not gonna happen this year. But that doesn't mean that doing some smaller things isn't preferable to doing nothing. Simply expanding Medicaid to properly cover the people it's supposed to cover now, and increasing reimbursement rates to caregivers in Medicaid, would amount to a massive reform that would help a lot of people. And that, to me, is the real problem with the mess we've been unfolding over the past year: we've lost sight of good, sensible policy changes that make sense and need to be done, in favor of political wins that prove we're dominant. Do something. Do a few smaller things. But admit, at the least... we're not where we were last week or last month...and the House will not pass the Senate bill. That's the reality. The question is... what now. And the preferable answer, it seems to me... is try and do what's doable, not cry about how people are mean and it's all so unfair.

I'de still like to think that Pelosi is trying to extract some meaningful commitments from Obama and Reid regarding what would be changed via the reconciliation amendment process.

If I were her, I wouldn't trust them AT ALL and would require any promises to be sworn IN BLOOD. I would also require that Reid strap on a pair of cajones going forward, although I'm not sure he'de know how to use them.

Obama and Pelosi both know how to twist arms, knock heads together and enforce party loyalty when they want to. Now's the time for them to do it. If Obama has any notion that he can still achieve bipartisan agreement on this he's too dumb to be President anyway, and deserves to be a one termer. But I don't think, whatever else he is, that Obama is dumb.

When the other team has just scored a breakaway slam dunk, the crowd is on their feet and the noise is deafening, and when all the momentum seems to be with the other team, a wise basketball coach calls for a timeout. He tries to look cool in his suit.

Anything done this week after Coakley's loss would have been most likely hasty, desperate and likely to fail. To continue the b-ball metaphor, there is only one play left in the game, so let's get it right. And get the ball into the hands of the player with the best chance of executing.

Right now, HCR is closer than before. Three doable things are required: 218 House members to pass the Senate Bill: A package of improvements that get 51 votes (not 60) in the Senate that fit under the reconciliation rules. An agreement on the sequencing of the introduction and passage of these bills. Why should House members vote for the Senate Bill, without a firm agreement to pass the filibuster-proof improvements? Why should the Senate pass the amendments if the House won't pass the Senate bill?

My personal opinion is that the 50+ Medicare buy-in would pass Reconciliation rules, greatly improve the bill and be very popular. It had great appeal a while ago, but died because Lieberman had an ideological objection because he thought supporters secretly wanted a single payer system. But we don't need his vote anymore, just as we don't need Bayh, Landrieu, Nelson etc. anymore.

Amen, T-Rex. Obama is not dumb, and HCR is not dead. In the campaign, we criticized him WHEN he did not "jump quick enough" to the stupid media games played against him, but he always bounced back, and in the end, he played the game right. I think he's staying hands off for now and he'll use the SOTU address to come out swinging.

However, PASS THE DAMN BILL, PELOSi!

weboy: You can, maybe, get some Republicans on board for a smaller, more focused bill with some incremental reforms.

You're still dreaming or, as seems more likely given your entire body of posts, not telling the truth. This. Will. Not. Happen. Republicans will not support anything other than tort reform and/or deregulation sold under the snappy slogan of "competition." They will not, and you have absolutely nothing to support the suggestion that they will, while all history on this issue, including all actual statements of the GOP caucus, supports the fact that they won't.

I'm all for the reality you say we must face, but you keep loudly espousing a plan that simply isn't part of it.

Tom, I know you love the idea, but those "three easy steps just aren't easy, or likely to occur.

1. There aren't 218 votes for the Senate bill. I would bet it's not even close, and all the "twist arms and knock heads" rhetoric misses the point: Pelosi used up a lot of capital to strongarm the initial House bill. A number of people will not cave again. The votes are not there. They will not appear.

2. The reconciliation idea is extremely unworkable and bound to cause more controversy... and plays right into Republican talking points that Dems will abuse nearly every legislative process to get their way. Also, just technically, I believe the bigger problems in the Senate bill - the ones the House would want changed - can't all be solved simply through reconciliation. And the idea of another fix bill getting the 60 needed to pass... is I think pretty clearly dead to everyone.

2a. That Medicare buy-in at 50+ thing is completely dead. D-E-D, dead.

3. Even assuming you could magically align all those stars, I actually think you'd have trouble with what you call "sequencing" - the House wouldn't trust the Senate to do the reconciliation elemtns right. The Senate wouldn't believe the House until the vote was taken. Impasse.

I get that there are a lot of people who are deply angry about what's happened, and are convinced Democrats did not "do enough" to pass healthcare reform. But being angry and shouting "Pass the damn bill" won't make them suddenly able to do what, for a year, they've struggled to do and repeatedly messed up. The problems with the healthcare reform packages - both bills - are really problems with process and politics that were baked in just about the time they started writing the bills. They are not things that can be easily fixed, and with the vote in Massachusetts, it seems clear that continuing to manhandle process and focus more on political gains than good policy will just create more problems. If we have some reforms that can be scaled back, and passed (and no, I'm not sure we do, but we should try) that seems like at least a shred of progress to start from. The Senate bill is not going to pass the House. Knowing that, I think, is where we have to start.

The scaled back bill is worse than the House Bill. It is not, however, worse than the Senate Bill. The Senate Bill simply is not viable, it imposes a mandate without ensuring an honest player is amongst the options for anyone trying to fulfill that mandate.

The. Senate. Bill. Can. Not. Work.
The. Senate. Bill. Can. Not. Work.
The. Senate. Bill. Can. Not. Work.

As such, a scaled back bill is, indeed, a better bill than the Senate Bill.

The Senate Bill appeals to wonks because it's the one that's "easier to pass" if only Congressional Democrats were 100%, rather than 90%, idiots who'd pass anything they're told.

But, really, it's not easier to pass. Because it doesn't work. And because it can't work, there's going to be a large contingent on Congress who simply will not vote for it, because it's absolutely 100% guaranteed to ensure heavy Democratic losses in the next electoral round.

Whether you're Steve or Rahm, you have to recognize reality here. The Senate Bill is dead. It was dead when it was voted on, and there's no real way to fix it beyond trying to shove something through reconciliation that may well be unsuitable for pushing through that process.

So take a step back, recognize - as you claim Liberals should - that you can't always get exactly what you want, and see what you can get. A bill without a mandate is the one most likely to be passed at this stage.

This watered down bill is better than nothing, and unlike the Senate bill, it's entirely progressive. It's not a corporate giveaway, it doesn't force citizens to do anything, it simply introduces new measures that'll help fix the current system.

Pseudo-progressive Wonks should be supporting it.

Pass. Something. Viable.
Pass. Something. Viable.
Pass. Something. Viable.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

...or else just move home and spend the rest of your pathetic little lives living in your mother's basement.

weboy, forget it. They don't pass the Senate bill and they're dead. They're not gonna pass squat in terms of "incremental reform" or whatever. It'll be blocked from all sides no matter what they try to do from here on out during an election year and with Dems wetting themselves in fear of doing anything.

I'm only about 90% sure the Senate bill is dead, but if it's as you say, then you can kiss all your smaller steps goodbye too. And with the recent Supreme Court ruling, it could be a lot longer than another generation before we ever have this chance again, with the dawn of a new gilded age.
Voters aren't going to be motivated to vote for Dems and your weak tea reforms after a year of being told we were on the cusp of a sweeping overhaul that would help all the uninsured, in fact they're going to be very angry or dispirited, and the Dems are going to be thrown from office in massive numbers. In the meantime, we'll see a whole lotta nothin' from congress, worthless bills that do nothing and impress no one as the Dem leadership shakes in fear of doing anything that would endanger their reelection prospects, not realizing that they are dead men walking regardless.
I don't know if it gives you much satisfaction for me to say that you're probably right, but if you are then it's over. Period, end of story. Although I'm sure you're incremental baby steps will make for an interesting roundtable topic at a policy wonk gathering while the country continues to crumble all around us.

"Pass. The. Damn. Bill."

Hear, hear!

Tom in MA, as to your B-B analogy, consider what the Boston Celtics did, whenever, the Philly 76ers, with Wilt, scored a breakaway slam dunk. While the Philly guys were still high fiving, a Celtic player would grab the ball and hurl an 80 some feet pass and Bill Russell would jam the ball through the other hoop. More offensive power is needed, not timeouts. It is high time to stop trying to shake hands with the opponents

However, Obama is trying hard to emulate his brother-in-law, the HC of BB at OSU, who helped his Beavers to the worst loss in Oregon State history. We thought we had voted for Bill Russell; not the guy the Blazers took instead of Jordan.

Insurers could not deny coverage to children under the age of 19 on account of pre-existing medical conditions.

Is this seriously what they are considering?? And nothing about rescission? This is RIDICULOUS.

Sorry, I'm so enraged by the inability of Democrats to get anything meaningful done that I didn't complete my thought. It's ridiculous that the pre-existing condition exclusion should stop at age 19. What about the rest of us?

Tom in Ma - I'd really like to believe you. But the Democrats aren't looking "cool in their suit". The coach has called a time out, but he's just sitting in the bench, quietly sobbing, and the players are giving press conferences blaming each other for the loss that hasn't happened yet.

Beyond the pussilanimous behaviour of Washington Democrats, the reason HCR is, if not dead, pretty much in Terry Schiavo territory, is that most Americans actually have some sort of health insurance. It may be too expensive, with costs outstripping inflation. It may not be there when they really need it, and it may not be all that good to begin with, but they see the toxic sausage ground out by the Senate (with the Obama seal of approval), and they're not so sure they trust Democrats to deliver anything better than what they already have, and many worry that somehow reform will cost them more.

When the Republicans double down on their death panel, free healthcare for illiegal aliens, rationing of service rhetoric, and the best the Democrats can come up with in rebuttal is mandates, fines, taxing benefits and still not covering everybody, it's no wonder that not just low-information voters, but pretty much everyone is confused as to whether Washington is capable of fixing health care. Hell, progressives have been arguing with each other as to whether the current legislation is worth supporting.

The problem isn't that healthcare is broken, it's that it's not broken enough for most Americans to feel that fixing it is as urgent as it should be. They may support ideas they a tenuous understanding of, like "the public option" and "universal coverage", but they're not going to take to the streets for them. Over the next decade the health care system will likely have to collapse to the point where a majority of Americans lack sufficient coverage and start demanding single-payer for anything to really change.

I'm in the pass-the-bill camp. Don Young (R-AK) is my Rep. and totally intractable. Is there any benefit in calling Representatives from other districts and states? It's not like I'll ever cast a vote for are against them, but I can't stand doing nothing.

C'mon, John, please give Sam Bowie time to come off IR at 1600 Penn.

So take a step back, recognize - as you claim Liberals should - that you can't always get exactly what you want, and see what you can get. A bill without a mandate is the one most likely to be passed at this stage.

Nope, nothing is going to be passed at this stage if they don't act fast. Going back to the drawing board and passing something much smaller isn't going to impress anyone, especially after Obama and the Dems committed the most epic fail in our legislative history.
You can't tell voters all year that we're on the cusp of sweeping reform and then say "oops, one special election and a 41 seat minority beat us, let's move on to some other empty promises" and seriously expect to actually accomplish anything or retain your majority status.
Obama and the Dems will have proven themselves weak and ineffective and no one is going to respect or fear them. They will simply be dead men walking until November. Nothing will be accomplished because everyone will know that they can stop anything that Obama wants to do, whether it's HCR, financial reform, or anything else. He staked his presidency on this and he appears to be walking away from it, which means he deserves to be voted out of office.
Trying to assuage everyone at this point with talk of smaller changes is putting a bandaid on a gaping head wound. If it's as you say with the Senate bill, it's over, for everyone. The next gilded age is soon upon us.

One of the worst aspects of not putting Single Payer in play, is that the onus on the employer, however, large or small, to provide health care for employees still exists. Ever wonder why the Whole Foods types of our nation has so few older workers? It is due to the health costs for older workers. Want to know why the W*Ms of the world hire so many "greeters" of the older set? Most of them are on Social Security and Medicare, so W*M doesn't have to provide any costly health care for them. Safeway does the same as they love to hire older workers to work as courtesy clerks. Provide Single Payer and take the burden away from businesses. No more costly paper work pushers.

Geez, the more I think about it the worse it looks--we had the Senate in session on Christmas eve to pass this thing, and now with one measely special election everyone thinks they can just walk away from it or pass some half-assed measures(assuming they could ever get anything passed again) and think that they aren't all going to be thrown from office?
I suppose I should be impressed just with the epic scale of this failure and stupidity I'm witnessing. "Bad optics" doesn't even begin to describe this.

I have two issues with this bill (any bill): mandates with an outrageously high cap on costs. Last I read (which, if I'm wrong, please do correct me), there is an allowance for 300% increase in premiums. VT has a 30% increase allowance. If I'm mandated to buy something that eats up 20 or 40% of my take home pay (and I make far too much to get any subsidies unless they reduce the age of Medicare), how do I afford that? I'm already paying $6000 annually in premiums (and that doesn't include my employer contribution) plus high deductibles and copays. And I'm reasonably healthy! I am one illness away from catastrophe. With a laughable cost containment here, someone needs to explain why I want this.

Single payer Medicare for all is the only way. But I am open to anything that actually helps. I'm not seeing this here. Simply saying they can't cancel or deny coverage, but allowing them to price sick people out of coverage does what? And like I said I am healthy with resources and I am worried!

Please tell me if I'm out there on this.

weboy: Tom, I know you love the idea, but those "three easy steps just aren't easy, or likely to occur.

What the fuck are you talking about? I don't love any option on the table, nothing I've said would lead anyone paying attention (or commenting in good faith) to think so, and I certainly haven't promoted the "three easy steps" you throw out there as an awkward attempt at redirection. Are you lying or confusing me with someone else?

I'm pointing out that you're presenting a solution as thoroughly unworkable as many others -- obtaining Republican support for ANYTHING other than tort reform and deregulation -- as doable. And you are not able to defend your position beyond mumbling, "Let's try it!" I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but in each post, you're not establishing yourself as an honest commenter, guy.

I beg your pardon, weboy -- I see you were responding to another Tom. I'd still like to hear your reasons for thinking, when all evidence points toward the opposite conclusion, that getting any Republican to vote for anything other than tort reform or deregulation is possible. Something considerably more concrete than you've produced so far, please.

This is a fine example of where "delayed" means "denied". All that twaddle about stopping for a breather so a better bill can be pulled together, don't try to do too much too fast, peel back the layers of the onion, try to reach bipartisan consensus....all of it is just cover for stalling until there's no possibility of anything being done. Democrats get blasted for accomplishing nothing by the midterms and lose a bunch of seats, and are unceremoniously chucked out in 2012 when the Republicans run on a "Time for a Change" platform.

The truly sad thing is that the lunge for healthcare reform will only be recognized for the selfless effort it was through the lens of history. The screaming, slobbering rabble of this generation will buy Al the Troll's message (by extension, the Republican message) - that the heroic Republicans shut down government in order to save the American Dream from becoming the Socialist Nightmare. I know people who believe it already.

It's also true, though, that the Democrats once again made their oft-repeated mistake when they overestimated the judgment, maturity and attention span of the American voter - and underestimated his or her need to be spoon-fed on a daily basis. That's a mistake the Republicans almost never make, and the electorate is exposed to a daily deluge of braying stupidity and wildly inaccurate but titillating tabloid rubbish that they lap up, all of it from the GOP. Democrats never learned to control the message, and it's too late this time.

Too bad, guys, it was a nice try. Next time, forget noble and try simple.

Oh; I realize it's a common name, but the effusive burst of gobbling at 8:29 was not me.

Democrats get blasted for accomplishing nothing by the midterms and lose a bunch of seats, and are unceremoniously chucked out in 2012 when the Republicans run on a "Time for a Change" platform.

Indeed - we all remember the disaster that was the Bob Dole presidency. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The one thing that can bring together politicians of different ilks is political popularity.

Passing the Senate version, etc. is fine with me, but it might also be possible to pass a politically popular bill that has many benefits. The trick is in what to put in a politically popular bill. I'd

Keep:

Regulations so that insurance companies can't exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions, can't cut you off when you start becoming expensive, and no annual or lifetime limits on coverage.

Keep the exchanges and small business tax breaks and keep all of the cost savers in the bill.

Leave tort reform to the states, but collect data on insurance company premiums to see if tort reform lowers insurance premiums or the growth rate of premiums in states that have it.

Any cost savings below CBO projected costs without the bill will go first to extend coverage to the non-insured. If you believe the savings will appear, and I do, they will give you a bigger budget for extending insurance than current bills.

Put out a 50 page version of that.

Tom, er, Tom T :) - Do I think there's a compromise bill on healthcare that can get Republican votes? Frankly, no, not right now... but I'm not convinced that it can never be done, or that, soon, some sensible Republicans - especially in the northeast - will realize that being the party of no and nothing won't win either house of Congress or the White House. Republicans do need some sort of legislative accomplishments to point to, and giving them the sop of tort reform in some limited reform isn't s deal killer for other lefty goals. Republican Governors want relief on Medicaid too. And Republicans are not a monolith - some would, desperately, like to scale back the power of the crazy conservative fringe elements. An actual deal on an actual issue helps to show that Republicans can do the work.

Is that "concrete"? No, I wouldn't pretend otherwise. But I do think we have to start somehwere... and I think we have to admit that "pass the damn bill" and praying for the House to pass the Senate bill are not solutions, or likely to happen. Compromise, admitting defeat on the big legislative approach... means you live to fight another day. If Republicans can't sit down and work through a compromise... at least we showed up, and tried. And then the problem is back with Republicans. Which, really, is where it belongs. On them.

Here's what I do know - anyone who uses the term "Obamacare" is likely to be a racist pig.

"...some sensible Republicans - especially in the Northeast..." weboy @ 12:29 PM.

You mean someone such as Sen. Snowe?
Why should any "sensible" Republicans buck their caucus, when Democrats can't even pass a bill touted as THE major legislation for 2009?
Pass the bill and fix what we can via reconciliation. That's as good as it's going to get for right now.