Wait, I thought we were heckling the president for "letting" Congress write the bills instead of force-feeding the agenda from the White House South Lawn? I'm getting confused about where to direct my outrage.

Sen. Brown is right in this respect: the ability of health care to pass Congress depends exclusively on cobbling the votes together. That's why the president maintained as flexible a public posture as possible. Threatening vetoes, as people are still demanding him to do next week in his speech, risks losing as many or more votes as it might gain by consolidating them.

This is tough balancing. But it's the way the Senate has come to work.

Good start Brown. Them's fightin' words! But how about directing this outrage at the Republicans instead.

Pres. Obama has consistently set out the goals he wants to achieve with a health care bill. He has also said he likes the public option but if his goals can be achieved in some other way he's fine with that. The trick here is that it is highly unlikely, if not close to impossible, for his goals to be achieved by any other means than a public option. So, imho, he is chivvying Congress to head in that direction by letting them hash to death a bunch of stupid ideas, like co-ops, and leaving them with no other way out. It's comforting to think that the Pres. is a poker player and also was a pool player in his misspent youth.

Whoa!

What is a win worth? What about principle? How could Pbama let 6 idiots in the senate dictate his HC agenda? Where the leadership?

It's seems that everyone wants Obama to draw a line in the sand. But, drawing a line in the sand works in negotiations, only if you're completely willing to walk away from the table with nothing in hand. Have people really reached the point that they think that would be in the best interest of this nation's uninsured, for President Obama to say that he's willing to cast all other reforms (e.g., preexisting condition discrimination, dropping someone during treatment, etc.) aside, that aren't important enough to pursue? I hope we haven't reached that point.

Additionally, drawing a line has already been tried in this kind of debate -- in 1993, when Bill Clinton did it. He declared that he would veto a bill that did not guarantee universal coverage and contain an employee mandate. Guess what? He ultimately walked back his position, because his veto threat did little to nothing to advance his call for certain components. [In fact, the Senate Finance Committee voted down a bill with the employee mandate.]

I know that people are quite passionate about the public option. But, even Paul Krugman says that universality can be achieved without it. Universality is still very much on the table, and would not be lost without the public option; that's a misconception. Additionally, a public option trigger could, if structured properly, still dramatically reduce costs.

I know what I'm saying is not something many would agree with. But, I think it's reasonable. Incremental progress is not new to America or its progressive fights -- Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights Act have all been tweaked and broadened since their initial passage.

So, in the midst of all the posturing, I just hope people haven't completely closed their minds to other options. I think sacrificing the good in the pursuit of the perfect would not be in this nation's or the Democratic Party's best interests.

Wrong! A deal-breaker would have ended up being a compromise that would have allowed a Public Option. Giving away Single-Payer and now Public Option -- who the hell is compromising? US!

Insurance industry and republicans get what they want, which is screwing people royally!

I have a suspicion that if the house and senate passes a bill with Pubic Option, Obama will veto it.

Sen. Brown seems like a very capable and respected Senator. But I'm still not sure I understand what the point of Brown saying this is...

If it's Congress's bill, and you can get the public option passed, just write it in, and let's be done with it. We already know that the House would pass a bill with a public option; all of their committee bills contain that provision.

The problem is, and has always been, the Senate. Sen. Brown, if the Senate truly wants and can actually pass the public option, what's the hold up? The leadership has the ability to pressure Senate Finance to hurry up their work, or they can completely bypass the committee. Where is the progressive muscle in the Senate?

So, again, I'm not sure what this is all about. Since this is your bill, if you're able to do it, just do it.

And, if this is the Senate's bill, you should spend less time ranting about what Obama is or isn't doing, and spend more time rounding up the votes to pass the public option. Ranting is easy. Securing votes is the hard part; that's probably why it hasn't been done yet, and we're even having to debate the merits of a compromise.

"If the insurance companies are satisfied with this bill it's not a good bill," Brown said.

Yes, thank God someone was finally brave enough to say it.