Why were the Republicans were so deadset and determined to see democracy in Iraq, and yet are so reluctant to have it here? I mean, they did lose the presidential election, right?

juuust great

President: "I will set the bar this low. Surely you can do this little in an effort to reform health care."

Rethugs: "Okay, but you will have to lower the bar even more if you want us to cooperate--(which we won't.)"

President: "In the name of bipartisanship, anything you want.""

Everyone is happy except the people who wanted to get out of the clutches of the insurance industry and the uninsured.

What can Americans expect from all the Right Wing owned news outlets that just refuse to tell the truth and the bedwetting, scared, paid off, reporters.

Ed of the Ed Show laid out the need for health care reform last night in black and white and made the necessity for it so clear and plain that a young child could understand it. If you have insurance, get seriously sick, can't do your job and lose it, you won't be able to pay your insurance payments and you'll lose your coverage. As it stands now, from that point on you are on your own and stand to lose everything you own due to the costs of care and hospitalization. There needs to be some sort of safety net for situations such as this.

Calls for "the media" to be a non-partisan fact checker are an exercise in futility. The corporate media represents its own interest and promotes whatever bullshit benefits its bottom line.

I just threw up in my mouth a little with this.

What is it going to take for the White House to grow a pair and actually lead rather than follow?

I know, don't hold my breath.

Now I'm depressed and I'm going to hide in my bed. (Maybe I should join the other half of America and start taking anti-depressants?)

"subsidies he expects to give the uninsured so they can buy into the system" - So we'll give poor people money that they can give to rich insurance companies, so the rich insurance companies get even richer and their stranglehold on our political system can grow. They'll have more money to buy more politicians so we will NEVER get any sort of public option. Awesome.

It's too late. Our government has already been bought and sold. Big business owns the Senate, House and, it seems, the Presidency. You? You'll get nothing and like it. Public opinion actually supports a public option, but we can't get it. Why? Because we don't have the millions to buy influence that businesses do.

Campaign finance reform (serious reform) is the only way to solve this and that'll never happen either, because big business won't allow it.

I would rather full nationalization of the health care system, BANISH Wall Street completely from health care.

But short of that the must have is HR 676, single payer, at the minimum.

This 'change of tactics' is more fanfare for tomfoolery and vast profiteering by the Troika of Big Insurance, Big Pharma and Big AMA.

He has already cut the deals.

to describe this fiasco, and that is helping to fuel the confusion.
This process has Nothing to do with Health Care....there is nothing essentially wrong with Health Care in America.

The problem is that millions of people have NO ACCESS to the health care services they need because they've been priced out of the system, or because they're being discriminated against for being sick.

All the President and the Congress appear to be doing is shuffling the cards behind their backs to ensure that the Health Insurance Corporations and the Pharma Corporations can continue to rape US citizens, and then continue to funnel portions of their ill-gotten profits into the coffers of the politicians - so they can continue to pass legislation that keep them on the gravy train.

This isn't even going to be Health Insurance Reform
when all is said and done!!! Millions will still not have access to health care and all we'll be doing is shoveling more taxpayer money into corpora-fascist hands. It's just a different version of TARP for insurance companies instead of banks.

We are so-o-o screwed....once again by the Corporate Fascist pigs who are in control.

Obama is a corporatist.
See: Obama wins, Dean dismissed from DNC.
see Obama's $20Mill in donations from INS and pharma.

http://www.opensecrets.org

I guess all those $5-25 donors don't count.

A public option has to be included in health insurance reform to lower costs. It's the only thing that will. Even the supporters of the co-ops say those won't lower costs, but will only create more competition which MIGHT lower costs.

Of course, this argument would have been much, much simpler if Obama had just said he wanted to expand Medicare to include everybody.

"Oh, he winked twice with his left eye while he was removing that speck with the first phalanx of the index finger of the right hand, clearly he is supporting universal healthcare even though he just said no to it. Oh, this Obama... such a great poker player! Let's sit there, and let's hope some more..."

I won't do it. I refuse to have a corporate drone determine whether or not I get to have a broken arm set because I already had an arm that could break.

I sense Obama's strategy all along was to throw out some possible alternatives in the form of bills regarding healthcare reform, sit back, watch what both the Republicans AND Democrats say and do, and then articulate his message accordingly. This next phase is simply another in a series of calculated moves prior to throwing down all of his chips and revealing his cards. We will now see if he is intent on re-election or getting healthcare reform on the books. He's already intimated he will risk re-election for healthcare reform passage. Seeing will be believing. I personally do not see him winning either way. If he softens the bill for approval, he loses his political base to the point of probably re-election loss. If he runs roughshod over opposition and succeeds on healthcare, he subjects himself to the inevitable right wing revenge machine that will paint him as a spending spree president that must be stopped. Given the average collective intelligence of this country, that could very well turn the tide against him come re-election. The one big game changer would be the economy. If we are successfully beyond this recession and jobs come back by election day, he will have formidable ammunition against these charges. Let's hope he recognizes a good set of cards when he sees them.

But he still won't commit on a serious public option? This is not a change in tactics in any way. He is being deliberately vague in the hopes of sabotaging real reform while deflecting blame for the sabotage elsewhere.

Obama is not a dumb man. He is well aware that a strong public option is the only real reform element in any proposal. He doesn't want a strong public option - or at least he doesn't want one as much as he wants insurance money for his corporate Dems.