Lamar Alexander obviously doesn't believe in majority-rule democracy. He should let his constituents know that.

Dean's only half-right. Obviously it depends on what you use them for. The Republicans certainly used their majorities to ram bill after bill down the throats of the Democrats, but looked what happened to them. THey lost control of Congress only after a decade. The pubic doesn't like it if they feel one party is "over-reaching." Legitimate or not, reconciliation will be framed that way in the media and there's not much anyone can do about it.

Maybe Congress should just pass a bill subsidizing coupons for band-aid purchases. Then Obama can call it, "sensible, incremental change that all Americans can believe in."

I suppose it's only fair, considering all the concessions the Bush WH made to the Democratic minority. :-)

Now I'm wondering what concessions the Obama WH will be making with the upcoming Climate bill, reproductive rights legislation, tax code legislation, cap & trade, tort reform and a whole host of other important, vital matters that will come before them. Many of us were hoping for bold, fresh leadership.

This ain't it.

Put health care in and of itself aside for a moment. There is a much bigger issue here.

For decades, the Dems have been portrayed as weak, indecisive and impotent, as people who won't stand up for itself or its principles, and certainly not for America. And once again, the Dems are fueling those portrayals. Obama didn't make it clear where he stood and what he wanted to accomplish. This allowed the B.S. from the right to stick. The middle didn't know where Obama stood and the rantings of Beck, Palin, etc. filled that void. Similarly, the right needed a reason to get energized after two demoralizing electoral cycles and they got it.

What Obama needed to do from the beginning is come out and clearly articulate his health care reform plan - how he would achieve it, why it was necessary, how it would benefit everyone (patients, doctors, etc.) and how it would be paid for. He needed to do this from the very beginning and do so in a powerful way that would leave no room for opponents to swoop in and dictate the narrative.

Maybe Obama's speech to Congress this week will accomplish that. But I'll have to see it to believe it. And even if it does, he's fighting an uphill battle, because his opponent has already defined him. He needed to give this speech in the spring when he began the healthcare reform push, not in September when he's already lost the upper hand.

Whatever Obama wanted as his means to healthcare reform - a public option, a public option with a trigger, allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, etc. - he needed to make it clear from the beginning.

The absolute insult to those who elected this democratic majority and president would be for them to pass a bill mandating the purchase of health insurance without providing a public option 'now' to purchase.

Requiring me to purchase health care from the providers that I despise for what they have done thus far... hundreds of thousands of bankrupt Americans, more deaths than have resulted from wars,and all for 'huge' profits. That would not just be an insult, I would be outraged!

That is the worst case scenario in my book and I believe it would seal the death of the democratic majority.

So far the democratic leadership has demonstrated that they are meek, weak, and perhaps 'owned' somewhere in the background by the same corporations that rule the republicans.

This fight is about much more than health care reform. It is about our political future. I agree with what Howard Dean said. If you cannot wield your majority with strong and clear leadership, you will lose your majority for good cause.

I have told my reps repeatedly, if you are do not fight for a real public option 'now', do not under any circumstances pass a mandate that I buy health insurance. Period.

We are still living with the consequences of the Ralph Nader Jihad against Al Gore.

I want to buy a Corvair, run down Ol' Ralph, & roll over him, repeatedly, 'til he's nothing but a two-dimensional strip of flesh, like you see in the Warner Brothers cartoons.

Is health care a moral imperative? As I listened to the many televised town meetings and debates on national health care legislation, I found the issue of morality missing. Not once have I heard a preacher, a rabbi or an imam stand to argue that the principles behind health care legislation are a moral imperative. Instead I heard the voices of activists opposing health care reform state their moral concerns regarding government health care payments for abortions and family planning.
To those whose opposition is based on the fear that health care legislation might cover abortions, I say that this is the least of our worries. Instead focus on how healthcare reform care can help reduce our dismal record of infant mortality and perhaps reduce the need for abortions. Most often opponents to reform claim that as a nation we have the world’s best health care system. Perhaps that’s true for those who can afford it, but according to the 2008 report released by the Center for Disease Control, our rate of infant mortality is 6.78 infant deaths per 1,000 live births – over 28,000 infant deaths. Measured against other countries our infant mortality rate is 29th in the world, much higher than Canada and most European countries with universal health care systems are demonized by opponents of health care reform.
Infant mortality is just one area where our health care system falls behind other leading Democracies. For example, life expectancy is often seen as an overall measurement of a nation’s quality of life and health. It represents the period that a child born in 2007 is expected to live, assuming mortality trends stay constant. In U.S. life expectancy has grown nearly one and a half years in the past decade, and is now at an all-time-high, just below 78 years, according to the CDC. Yet even with gains, the U.S continues to lag behind about 30 other countries in estimated life span, according to the World Health Organization. Japan, a nation with Universal Health Care not only has the longest life expectancy - 83 years for children born in 2007 – but also the lowest rate of infant mortality – 2.79 per 1000 birth.
For those who claim that the costs of health care reform will impose a burden on taxpayers and future generations, I suggest you look at the burden it is already costing our local health care system. Week after week in our local newspaper I see literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in judgments filed by our local hospital against individuals for unpaid hospitals bills. Last week’s list of 61 hospital judgments is typical; it totaled $295,376 But this is just a drop from the tip of the medical syringe that I believe is filled with much smaller doses of debts owed to doctors and healthcare institutions for medical services. Neither does it include the bankruptcies caused by piles of medical bills.
The real meaning of health care reform is more than the bickering about its cost to taxpayers or the nit-picking political ideologies of the left and the right. I encourage all readers call of your community religious leader join hands in this effort to secure healthcare reform that will benefit the people who need it the most and to remember our motto when it boils to our nation’s finances: “In God We Trust.”