The damn bill is not going to pass.

The damn bill is not going to pass.

The damn bill is not going to pass.

Get over it and move on. And if you want somebody to yell at, yell at the Senate for not being willing to commit to the fixes that WOULD get it passed.

Probably it is a mistake to take at face value anything the two-faced private insurers have to say about reform, but this article reminds us that abandonment of HCR would not be a triumph for them:

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/if-healthcare-bills-fail-a-quandary-for-insurers/?scp=1&sq=quandary&st=cse

This thing is not going to die, and the self-interest of the insurers, who had agreed to many of the reforms already, is part of the reason why.

Anyone remember when George W. Bush moved forward in spite of the fact that public opinion was strongly AGAINST what he was trying to do? He was bold and resolute. People prayed for him. Now, if Democrats had the sack to try and move forward in spite of negative public opinion, they're arrogant and disconnected from real Americans.

I just want to hide in my basement.

From Ezra:
-----------------------------------------
Part of the negotiations center on whether Reid can provide an ironclad guarantee that the Senate will not leave the House in the lurch, aides said. If the House agrees to pass the Senate bill with a companion measure — or a “cleanup” bill — to make fixes, they want to know that the Senate will indeed pass it, too.

There was some talk among Senate leadership on Thursday of putting together a letter signed by 51 Democratic senators pledging to pass a cleanup bill if the House would pass the Senate bill. But that effort fizzled when support for it didn’t materialize, insiders said.

“The Senate moderates’ viewpoint is, ‘We passed our bill. We’re not going to spend three weeks on some other bill,’” said a Democratic lobbyist who represents clients pushing for reform.
------------------------------------------

The failure is epic and universal: House, Senate, and White House.

If a Democrat in a red district is afraid of voting for the bill, he should switch parties. There is no point in being a Democrat if you don't vote with the Democrats (there used to be, in the Senate, the idea that it helped to have blue dogs because at least they wouldn't filibuster Democratic bills---what a laugh)

Steve, I've been saying this for months. The Teabaggers (now they are the Brownteabaggers) are reacting to a story about the healthcare bill that isn't true, (it's been invented by Fox and Limbaugh,) and the moderate Republicans have wanted to postpone the passage for as long as possible so that there won't be enough time for voters to find out about their lies before the next election.

The California Senate just pushed-out a bill for a state single-payer system. Watch the private insurers come rushing back to the U.S. House to get something passed to prevent this! If the Left had any sense, they would ditch the national bill, and help California do this:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/21/BAAN1BLNTP.DTL

Massachusetts has universal coverage, and Brown SUPPORTED it. Make the teabaggers choke on this!

A grim reminder and a metaphor

Lifelong Dem:

Anyone remember when George W. Bush moved forward in spite of the fact that public opinion was strongly AGAINST what he was trying to do? He was bold and resolute. People prayed for him.

What's Senator Obama up to today?
Rearranging bipartisan chairs on The Titanic?

That's not just empty snark folks.
What I feel today, the rest of the country will feel tomorrow. Here is your morning aphorism:

In politics, anger ultimately flows uphill.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Pass. A. Damn. GOOD. Bill.

(and that rules out the Senate bill)
There, fixed.

"consider alternative bills that can receive more Republican support."

In a parallel universe ... where regaining the majority and destroying Obama are not uppermost in the minds of Republicans ... then maybe

How is it that Republicans can easily turn a blind eye to the polls ("so what") without repercussion while the dems hunker down in fear?

After they've already voted for health care reform?
~~~
Right. Have they forgotten that whole "for it before being against it" meme? (Even though that in reference to Kerry was easily explainable... doesn't matter - soundbites count, longer explanations don't make it thru to the masses thanks to short attention spans and the lazy media).

If the Dems don't pass this, they will lose pretty much all of their support.

Whats more frustrating is that every part of this bill that people don't like is there to appeal to conservatives, and that everything they wish was in there is not because it was opposed by conservatives.

You logically can't take a bill requiring a 60 vote majority, which means Lieberman gets to rewrite chunks of it on a whim, and think the plan is really anywhere near close to what the Democrats want. We could have 59 Democrats behind a full-scale European conversion, and Joe Lieberman could water it down to this crap.

This is why the Democrats absolutely need to start enforcing party discipline. They're sure not going to have much else to do this year, unless they want to challenge the filibuster.

Massachusetts has universal coverage, and Brown SUPPORTED it. Make the teabaggers choke on this!
No we don't, we have a crappy mandate and that's it.

Steve's right again. Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

(Don't forget to call or write your congressman.)

Steve L is right -- no chance the Dems do the right thing. We should stop talking about it.

It's not going to happen.

Fuck it. And once abandoned, 6 months down the road the public will be begging for a bill. Fuck them then for being so damn stupid - let them watch FOX.

What's missing in the picture is that we have not been able to direct the blame for this failure appropriately. The blame for that is the stalling of about 30 pieces of absolute shit masquerading as Democrats in Congress.

The solution to that is a cleansing.

Agree with Lee Arnold above, additionally Brown says he does not like the fact that Mass. may have to pay something for the bill, well, apparently Mass. got subsidies big time for their bill, some are asking if Brown will reimburse the federal taxpayers.

Just called my Congressman (Moran). His staff assistant says he favors the House making changes, kicking the modified bill back to the Senate and the Senate passing it with reconciliation.

How likely is that? Does the Senate even have 51 votes for reconciliation?

55% or greater would have been for holding off on civil rights act too. Lead, follow or get out of the way...pass the damn bill and do it with gusto

Chooooke!!!

Seriously, if the Dems fumble this, I can't seem myself voting for any of them. I can see myself working to unseat any Dem who doesn't pass this thing.

So now we find out Obama is a pretty face but an empty suit. Where Hillary would have stepped up and been prepared to go down fighting, Barrack steps aside to work on “other things”. Hell, he doesn’t even have the guts to admit he is giving up. Instead he explains how he can take all the easy parts of both bills and pass them individually with bipartisan majorities at some later date, assumedly right after the sugar plumb fairy appears and magically blesses them.

CYCBI-MA (change you can believe in - my ass)

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Where.Are.The.Votes.

Where.Are.The.Votes.

Where.Are.The.Votes.

By the way, I'd love to hear from the pass-the-damn-bill crowd how they prose to get Stupak and his gang on board. Without their votes you're still short even if you succeed in strong-arming the progressives.

"Propose", that is. Sorry for the crappy proofreading.

It WASN'T an unpopular bill until Democrats stood by and watched while Republicans stole the message, repackaged it to suit their narrative and then brayed it from the rooftops on 10.5.

I've lost track of the number of postings, just in the last couple of months, that pleaded with Democrats to "grow a pair", "get a spine"; "man up". All those were good advice, but Democrats weren't listening. They let the suggestion that an attack undefended inspires suspicion that you must feel guilty about something grow in the voters minds, again. Once again, Republicans successfully cast themselves as Real Americans while the Democrats were portrayed as Meddling Nerds.

If we were talking about two competing groups of animals vying for the same food supply, the Democrats would already have been forced to extinction. That's what happens to animals who won't adapt.

After you've called your Congresscritters and done everything else of actual merit, there is a "Pass The Damn Bill" Facebook group.

"...a 55% majority would prefer to see lawmakers hit the brakes on health care and "consider alternative bills that can receive more Republican support.""

If it only takes 10 to 12% of the population to impose a filibuster, does that mean that bi-partisan support has to be greater than 90% of the population?

I would actually like to know the percentage of the population actually represented by the Republicans in the Senate.

Maybe the question should be rephrased as: what percentage of the population needs to support the passage of a bill (not necessarily think it is a good bill) to make it bi-partisan?

James Fallows has answered the question posted above - "Counting the new Republican Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts, the 41 Republicans in the Senate come from states representing just over 36.5 percent of the total US population. The 59 others (Democratic plus 2 Independent) represent just under 63.5 percent" See: http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/01/political_math_36_64.php

If 63% of the population in favor of a bill does not equal bi-partisan support, what percentage does?

OK. Pass the damn bill. And dont put a cent for any Senate staffer or Senate function in any Appropriations Bill until the Senate passes House approved reforms for health reform.-- and maybe, for good measure, invokes the nuclear option to break filibusters once and for all. One can dream??

"there will be plenty of reports about what the new law does and does not do, which would further help debunk the myths."

And you expect the MSM to do this? Why don't you realize that the MSM will actually CREATE more myths than are presently going around? Which is not a reason to give up on the bill anyhow.

Pass the damn bill. Stope messing around. You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Haven't you people been paying attention. This is our last chance for a long time. Pass the damn bill.

pass the bill?

lose. the. house.

is it worth it? for this 1 issue, when most americans are interested in jobs?