Now look at what you'd have. First, we ALREADY use taxes on everyone to pay for health insurance for YOU! What my scenario above means is that for every customer of the private health insurance industry, we'll give THEM $2,000 a year (that's the part of employer-provided insurance WE TAXPAYERS pay). Then why not make it MANDATORY? So then the entire country is required to give $2,000 a year to a highly profitable industry. Any way you slice and dice that, it IS A TAX. So, in making that suggestion YOU are advocating HIGHER TAXES. The only difference is that under your plan, the beneficiary is a ruthless private industry that denies care, drops customers and gives themselves unbelievably massive salaries. They are getting FILTHY RICH on tax dollars. Unlike a public plan, our TAX MONEY would be spent to lobby our government, buy TV ads, pay sales staff, for marketing, advertising, underwriting, palatial offices and extreme salaries, especially for those bonused for screwing customers, er, I mean “avoiding medical losses.”

You favor taxing everyone to shovel money into the pockets of the already rich, as I have always known.

I just hadn't SEEN the polls. You're right, Rassmussen was one.

But consider this from P.M. Carpenter: http://blog.buzzflash.com/carpenter/505

“For example, 55 percent of Americans, says one poll, are firmly behind a public option. Oh, you slackers, says another; it's actually a walloping 79 percent. OK, either way, there's majority support, right? Yes, but get this: in the second poll — the one purportedly revealing a groundswell of popular support on behalf of a public option — only a dispiriting minority (37 percent) were able to show they even understood what “public option” meant.”

For those who may or may not know what “public option” even means (let's face it, the President hasn't been exactly clear on this), the support is 60% or more. You've got to be cautious with polls.

Would you support giving everyone the ability to deduct the cost of health insurance. But you always support the higher taxes on everyone to pay for health insurance for illegal aliens, non-tax payers, and virtually everyone who refuses to pay for themselves now.

And anyone who believes that the Democrats are disorganized is not paying attention. The Democrats run on a platform of expanding government, expanding entitlements, and more government and they deliver. The Republicans run on a platform of smaller government, lower taxes, and limiting entitlements and all they deliver is expanded government, expanded entitlements, and expanded government.

That is why the U.S. will soon be a one party state: The U.S. only needs one big government party just like most big cities only need one political party.

EVERY reliable poll I've seen has the numbers the other way around!!!!

And yes, there are Insurance Whores, Pharmaceutical Whores, and Trial Lawyer Whores.
But no one will vote them out.

Don't just drop a lie-bomb and not be prepared to support it.

if compromise and bipartisanship becomes a goal in and of itself, then the success of that goal could result in little more than backpatting over the accomplishment of extending a status quo – one that is moving steadily downward.

'
I see it as better than a political yo-yo when policies are implemented pleasing one side and reversed as soon as the other side takes over. Better to have a constant bipartisan progression. If its worth having, it needs sustained and bipartisan support, or it will not be either die out or continue to split the nation. We need to focus on the long term needs of the nation, not a need to ram through partisan agendas in a limited time.

…through any means imaginable, whether it's a welfare state, a crippling entitlement program, or outright socialism.

Are there democrats who are nutcases and hypocrites? Sure there are, but anecdotes are not the same as trends. One more observation: if compromise and bipartisanship becomes a goal in and of itself, then the success of that goal could result in little more than backpatting over the accomplishment of extending a status quo – one that is moving steadily downward. Frankly I don't see us addressing the real problems we face without breaking a few eggs. Just how important is it to placate and sooth the ruffled feathers of the clueless, paranoid, and out of touch? Sorry if this seems painfully un-PC, or overly judgemental, but I just never got into any of that phony self-esteem building, nor into extending credibility to those who have done little to deserve it.

And can anyone deny that Reid is a rather pathetic leader in the Senate? In fact, he'll most likely loose his seat at the next election with no help from Democrats.