Do you continue to attempt to push for more improvements on the existing proposal or do you make the decision to actively oppose its passage. It’s one or the other. We know there are people bent on defeating this attempt for the wrong reason and if it goes down in defeat they will believe that it was their doing.

We know further that Obama, Reid, Landrieu, Lincoln are worthless as are many in congress. I believe that they should pay a price. But that threat needs to be credible and I believe that a campaign to support alternative candidates should begin now. That is the biggest leverage we have.

p.s. i don’t blame you for your position on the bill. if i lived in CA or PA, i’d be wanting to pursue the single payer efforts instead of this pos.

i’m not sure, but it may even be that MA is better off without the proposed reform. it’s confusing though because if there are additional fed $$$ that will help, even if benefits decrease. very complicated.

And it hasn’t been reconciled with the Senate version -whatever that might end up being- AND we know that the Senate version will be much mnore ‘conservative’ than HR3962.

The failure to include the Kucinich amendment is VERY BIG to me because I live in CA and we’ll have a new governor who most likely would not veto the single payer legislation the voters have TWICE passes only to have the Schwarz veto it.

Add to that the Eshoo amendment and as far as I’m concerned, this bill should be defeated and a rewrite be done. Based on what I read, it’s a setup for failure.

The Congress could rescind all antitrust exemptions for the industry(HR3962 does do this), allow for Medicare to negotiate drug prices(it does this to a degree), do away with rejection because of ‘pre-existing condition’ exclusions(it does that), and reduce Medicare enrollment age to 55 immediately(does not do that) and younger ages as time goes by(does not do that)remove ‘lifetime caps’(it does do that) and then come back to examine the results of those changes without causing the divisions in the populace that the current bill does.

The problem people in this site are grappling with is whether it’s better to scrap this current attempt at reform for being on balance more harmful than good, in the expectaton that a better proposal will come out of congress later if we continue to apply pressure. That is a pretty open question.

It is a difficult posiition to be in. Being the realistic and cautious type, I lean to taking even a small step in supporting the current bill in that it will afford increased coverage with lower rates for those in the exchage and place some modest limits regarding exclusions and rescisions on private insurers.

I only take this step because the opposing prevailing forces in this country are just too great. Deeply wrong headed beliefs among the public is not the problem as much as deeply entrenched monied interests. Those forces are not going away any time soon and a struggle for change may come step by step.

http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/video/110509.htm

It is not however the case that the positions from the right and the left coincide because they are both equally true. In fact they are diametrically opposed. The left argues that the proposed bill does not go far enough in the direction of reform and should therefore be scrapped for a better more comprehensive tax based single payer not for profit system. The right wants reform to be scrapped and let the for profit system continue and just allow more inter-state deregulation of private insurers.

That the positions coincide says nothing about the positions themselves.