Miller thinks that Reid believes that he can put the votes together? Really? If the House stupidly does this and it falls through (i.e. when the inevitable happens), every Progressive member of the House who goes along with it - after having claimed to be a leader on health care reform and having taken money from progressives for months - will have to be held accountable. For example, if Weiner and Grayson stupidly go along with this and it falls through (i.e. when the inevitable happens), Their supporters will have to strip them of their "Progressive" status, demand that they return every penny that was given to them, very publicly and loudly shame them, and never trust them again. If their supporters do not hold the most visible of the supposed “allies” accountable for such a betrayal, they would lose all credibility.

I'm not sure what the point of this is. Do policy experts agree that HCR needs to be passed in order to solve the numerous problems that we face with our current system? Um, yeah. We knew that last year before Obama was inaugurated.

However, policy experts are not necessarily political experts. Nor are they negotiation experts.

Begging for HCR like a homeless man begs for some spare change is a highly counterproductive tactic. It invites the other interested parties to take advantage of your desperation.

If I hear one more time about the "deep philosphical differences" concerning the role and size of government in this debate, I am going to scream. Where was the deep philosophical aversion of Republicans to big government when they jammed through the costly Medicare Part D program?

It is also worth noting that the "this bill" that the signatories urge passing is not the Senate Bill that Benen and others have urged the House to pass. It is a hypothetical bill passed through reconciliation with undefined terms and unknown support.

Although I disagree with Benen that the House should pass the Senate Bill, at least those who are advocating for that solution are calling for a very specific act. In contrast, this letter is nothing more than 80 experts saying that they are tired of delay. Calling for a bill to pass without specifying what should be in it is completely useless as it doesn't put pressure on anyone to do anything (since everyone can say that they too support passing "a bill" and point the finger at someone else for failing to compromise).

To follow up on bob h's point, the biggest mistake made by advocates of single-payer, Medicare buy-in, or public option has been their failure to challenge the principled nature of the opposition.

More than anything, the American people judge politicians on their sincerity. If someone wants to filibuster the public option because they have a good faith reason to oppose it, the American people will tolerate the politician even if they disagree with the policy. OTOH, if they think the opposition is in bad faith (see Gingrich, Newt; Air Force One's stale M&Ms) then people will punish the politicians.

Bearing this in mind, public option proponents should not have allowed opponents to pretend that their opposition was rooted in anything other than a bribe from the insurance industry.

You shouldn't be allowed to filibuster bills from your own caucus without a very, very, very good reason. And proponents should have been demanding that those threatening a filibuster go to the floor of the Senate and explain what they thought would happen with the public option, what would happen without it, what their analysis was based on, and why the public option (even if not ideal) was worth filibustering over.

The failure of so-called advocates to force their opponents to explain their behavior has been a monumental disaster.

“We believe that the only workable process at this point is to use the President's proposal to finish the job. After long debate, the House and Senate have passed two similar bills that do crucial things to improve U.S. health care.”

If the House and Senate bills are really that “similar”, then the Senate should just pass the House bill.

DONE.

Is this the damn bill with a mandate, no public option, and really weak regulatory reforms? Don't pass that damn bill: it sucks.

Or are we talking about passing just any old bullshit just to pass something called 'reform'?

OK, given the good point from your earlier post that they have in fact passed the damn bill and now need to reconcile it, shouldn't the refrain be "Reconcile. The. Damn. Bills"? Or have we got any wording that's a bit catchier?

I am not usually this frivolous, but all I can focus on is that Steve's list of "heavy hitters" includes Henry Aaron.