The thing is however you choose to spin it the differences between the House and Senate bill are nothing compared to the difference between the Senate bill and the status quo.

And before the Brown comet hit the House seemed set to accept a pseudo-conference bill whose difference from the Senate bill reportedly really was just minor tweaks, changes to tax structuring and thresholds.

It's worth it to look for a way to improve the bill as long as that door is still open. But at what point can we say the House is demanding concessions just to keep it from looking like they lost?

We have to keep the pressure on - everyone keep us those phone calls to your senators and congressman.

Now is the time for Democrats to show us Democracy in Action as opposed to the standard procedure of Democracy Inaction!

Hey Congress Critters, on the health care reform front - git er done! -Kevo

The senate is broken and dysfunctional. To expect anything good from this body is placing unreasonable demands on them. If it isn't already screwed up, the senate will find a way to screw it up.

Too many senator's wives are caught up in the profiteering of the HC ins. industry to allow the flow of money into these senator's hands to dry up.

If it's progressive and it's the senate...expect failure from this good ole boys club.

How can we make it clear to Pelosi that she won't be Speaker next year if health care isn't passed?

The odds are the Democrats will suffer huge losses if health care isn't passed and might lose control.

In any event, there will be a palace coup to replace the impotent leader and replace her with someone who might be able to actually LEAD!!!

Don't think Pelosi is the problem here. Seems to be the asswipes in the Senate. Makes you long for a Constitutional amendment to scrap it.

The House is a veritable nirvana of legislative prowess compared to the Senate. However Nancy knows the Senate is utterly dysfunctional and will cost the Dems their majority if allowed to continue putting every bill into a black hole.

She may be posturing a bit on HCR in order to build grassroots pressure from the left to move her caucus toward passing the Senate bill.

Either way, this will play out fairly quickly I think. HCR will pass or die before April Fools Day.

Mowgli @ 5:58PM: "She may be posturing a bit on HCR in order to build grassroots pressure from the left to move her caucus toward passing the Senate bill."

If there is to be any pressure in the House to pass the Senate bill, it will come from the Blue Dogs -- definately NOT the left!

In the immortal words of the late Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn: "the Republicans are our opponents. The Senate is our enemy!"

On a discouraging note, the Speaker made it seem as if the differences with the Senate are considerable and hard to overcome: "I would not call them minor tweaks because that would imply there's something there that we could accept, except for some minor tweaks. No, it's more serious than that."

I don't read that as discouraging, just an effort to pre-empt Senate conservaDems from taking the line of "if there are just minor tweaks, why don't you just pass it without us doing anything?"

MCC is basically right. I don't really blame the House reps for being angry, but I will if their anger gets in the way of passing the bill. The Senate sucks, and they have way too many jackasses per capita, but the fact remains that the House can move a bill that will save thousands of lives and prevent millions of bankruptcies. Sometimes leadership requires swallowing your pride.

If Harry Reid can't get 50 votes for some amendments to the PoS Senate bill, then he's as worthless as a steaming pile of dogshit.

The House has already given a MAJOR concession by agreeing to work from the Senate bill. She has to be able to offer something to house progressives so they can hold their nose and vote for it.

Don't put this on Pelosi. Senate leadership needs to do their fucking job for once.

Is it such a suprise that the one member of congress with brass balls is a woman?

Even Barney Frank bolted briefly after the masshole massacre.

Actually, the quote o' the day is from Gail Collins, in the New York Times: "Have you ever seen all the House Republicans in one place? It’s like a herd of rabid otters."

"If being obsessed with the status of health care reform is wrong, I don't want to be right," indeed.

Steve, are you a closet hillbilly music fan?

It wasn't God who made honky-tonk Blue Dogs.

Simply put, it's been back-burnered.

If Democrats are really committed to getting it done, they will immediately take the bull by the horns and force a dynamic into play by passing this bill and promptly following it with an amending bill reflecting differences between the two versions that can be presented to the Senate for a reconciliation vote. Political pressure will be strong on the Senate majority to adopt most of the changes they originally said they wanted by a majority vote. An "agreement" at this point has no authority anyway, and continuing to talk about one simply looks like interminable (and infuriating) delay by weak-kneed Democrats "running for the hills." It's time for supposedly progressive House members to step up to the plate, too.

The Senate bill is good, an historical advance that will receive much, much stronger public support when people finally see what's actually in it. The changes will make it better, and most of the changes wanted by the House will receive strong public support, too.

Why in the hell can't they see the obvious path to virtually complete victory, and start the inexorable process into motion? The public option is never going away until someone convinces the public that it really is a bad idea. That will never happen because it's a hard case to make if it is even possible, so there will be a public option, probably well in time to be made available the day the exchanges open. Continuing delay only makes the Democrats look like either they are colossal wimps who have no core principles or they were never really serious about reform at all.

its jobs, stupid

Steve: Here's hoping that your obsession with HCR works out better than your obsession with McCain on Sunday talk shows.