The Obama administration has woken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.

I know this is late but..

I don't think the American people have the attention span to hold Dems accountable for what they do today. A public option only backfires if there are dead people waiting in emergency hospital rooms.

Simple, 2012 and beyond. If they go for the short term they wont have a long-term.

Why shouldn't they ram through their agenda? Does anyone here think the Republican party wouldn't be able to pass anything they wanted with 60 Senators? Reps would have had this thing passed 2 months ago.

That doesn't justify the idiocy we are seeing from the Dems now (rather than the kinds of reforms I've listed here as I have numerous times that even Democrats and their voters should be able to enact and also to understand).

However, expect the emotion of many children to be exploited (and the subject of scapegoating and more demonizing of the opposition). Waxman and Stupak, unsurprisingly, are demanding all kinds of industry financial data, including executive pay, of course, in order to stoke the children's anger and direct it, no doubt, at the public's apprehension at the Dems' misconduct. (Smarter people simply know this is a stunt and we already resent it, though given the garbage we've witnessed so far, it's unsurprising.)

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/08/19/will-wax…

There are lefty children in whom fear is created over health care, global warming, and other handy kinds of “crises” [sic], and creating and exploiting anger among these exploitable people is no surprise, either.

And punishing the GOP or at least expressing dissatisfaction with them (as in 2006, earlier).

It reminds me of the callers on NPR yesterday who were howling that Obama is a coward for not rushing stupidly at full speed with the “public option” (and with other things the mainstream finds poor or bad).

1. The co-ops could be made to work, and would be sought to work, for the currently uninsured, because of course (this is a real-world aspect; context is not limited to the theoretical only) this would be the new, substitute “public option” federal government presence, and naturally this would be something like a quasi-private (i.e., public but nominally private, less so than “private” providers under Medicare control, but rather like Amtrak [the National Railroad Passenger Corporation] or, say, Fannie Mae, FNME). And (to proceed to the more important point from there), being a government creation, it could more easily get all kinds of subsidies (subsidized discounts, the rest, say, coming out of general revenue; Medicare has phony 25% “premiums” and 75% funding “mandatory” out of general revenue, after all) and the ability to engage in the rigged “competition” to wear away the private sector (described by the lie, “keep them honest,” i.e., facing diminishing market share and, likely, losses) — just like the “public option” scheme.

2. But do they _need_ to work and does Washington really _care_ if they work? How much forethought has really been given and serious effort made on behalf of co-ops, to date? Next to none. These weren't ever seriously sought as an alternative to the “public option” scheme. These co-ops are just in practice a euphemism and concern-reducing device, and only now are seen as a face-saving backup, not merely a substitute, for the “public option” scheme that has so many people concerned or opposed.

3. “a public option can't be said to be substantially to the left of the US mainstream when multiple polls showed over 60% support for one”

What polls, when? The public doesn't want the radical change promptly to Medicare for All or whatever other universal federal health care program's name it would be. (“Single-payer” has always been weasel language, cowardly and evasive. WHO'S THE PAYER? Always the same answer, _avoided_ though the real issue all along. [scowl]) The opposition to the “public option” is to an obviously large extent because intelligent people know this is a blatantly transparent incrementalism effort intended to “crowd out” and replace private health care (it's pre-paid comprehensive care, not “insurance”) with government (public) health care. As much or more opposition to this measure is not due only or specifically to the “public option” but due to many other details of the legislation, or with the nature of it and how it is being crafted and shoved down people's throats (in addition to bypassing objecting members of Congress in an unethical manner, which is openly threatened), and how it's the latest and worst example of very bad conduct as well as very bad legislation (increasingly so) by the Democrats in Congress and Obama.

4. “Also, universal healthcare coverage was a major part of Obama's platform when he was running for office.”

There is a great distinction to be made (and should never be difficult to make) between insurance and insurance reform, and comprehensive health care and federal expansion into health care and provision of it — obviously.

With this health care issue but with other issues as well, the Dems have not only been rash and sought bad legislation for us (and hurried and strong-armed it through, wrongly) but have grossly overreached what goals might be argued to be reasonable and even desireable. This is simply the worst example (to date, at least). Why didn't Obama concentrate on insurance (and pre-paid health care) by actually choosing specifically (and _only_) to seek true reform? Where was the simple and superior choice, instead, to require large-population “community rating,” set up uniform (thus portable) benefit packages, perhaps even (overdoing things, but arguably aligned with similar goals) establishing price controls or utility-style regulation (of charges and provision criteria) in addition to the other things I listed? This is so easy to list, once more (I've done it easily, numerous times). Why didn't he choose to be reasonable rather than rashly over-ambitious (and arrogant and conceited, as some lib Dems in Congress are, too)?

Oh, and why didn't he attain the political and other high ground he unconvincingly claimed he wanted to do (as if we more intelligent people ever would have believed him or other noteworthy Dems) and first seek Medicare and other government health program reforms before expanding the scope of the federal government (which, coincentally, would thereby have improved in its reputation beforehand) into health care?

No, he and the crazier lib Dems couldn't do that, for that's not as fun as kids doing what they really want without limit, instead.

[scowl]

* * *

“Kos and HuffPo”

Normally play-pens of children, but even some of the kiddies at “HuffPo” have expressed objections to,and concessions of problems with, this failing effort and what it threatens to do to people. (It's not a surprise but still disgusting that these people, in addition to the farthest extremists on the Left, who don't like anything other than instant Medicare for All and reject anything that retains any private interests in health care, have been interrupted and treated rudely, as I've witnessed on CNN, for example, recently.)

This worst Dems' effort so far (conducted by the farther-left Dems, pulling this nation well to the left of the mainstream), seeking bad legislation (rushed stupidly, made sloppily, often incomplete or changing with each hour), is obviously faltering, and deservedly so, and is revealing itself to be overreach beyond even the crazier lib Dems' frantic and irrational grasp.

Is there no justice in the world? Tell Stickings and Kattenburg to get out of bed already and throw up a couple of “F*** those conservative bastards posts. The troops are in need of some nourishing blue meat.

Here's the math pro-public option. 50 million + Millions of “insured” who are unhappy with the private industry's monopoly, denial and deductables that ruin finances + millions more who, upon being properly educated about how they pay for the 50-million already, will fall in love with the idea of reining costs on the de facto public option that's already in place.

Millions + millions + millions. Pretty good base if you ask me..