that "some congressman" is all that is standing btw us and decades more of indenture to Big Insurance. Rep Grijalva has held fast from the jump and publicly put it in writing, telling his shiny new President, he wont vote for a Conference bill without the PO - unlike the distinguished gentlelady from Illinois

They'd damn well better not be bluffing. If they cave they may as well go home to their districts for the duration, because they'll be totally irrelevant from now on. Hopefully they have enough sense to realize this.

No, not "until"- right through the "last second" and beyond. No conference bill lacking a strong public option should pass the House. Period, end of discussion.

Yes, the last eight years were so wonderful, especially those few when the Republicans controlled Congress as well, I'm sure glad that it's just a boogeyman story that isn't real. I'm really going to enjoy Justices Alito and Roberts in 20 years when they're still on the bench, I loved those massive giveaways to the rich, our botched response to Katrina, gutting our environmental laws and sticking our fingers in our ears pretending that climate change doesn't exist, and those lovely neo-cons and their Iraq war. I suppose you're one of those "Obama is just like Bush people." Support more progressive challengers in primaries, definitely those that have seen fit to try to thwart a Progressive agenda at every turn, but stop pretending that there isn't any difference between Democrats and Republicans.

I understand perfectly well what's at stake. No reform now means this won't get touched again for at least another decade. By anyone. I sure hope you don't hit your lifetime limit with your insurance company or lose your job and are unable to get insurance because of a pre-existing condition in that time. Even if you do, I'm sure you'll still agree that getting rid of these practices wouldn't have been "real" reform, because of course real reform fixes all of the problems in the system at once.

And when it gets touched, it may very well be by folks who you agree with even less than the current administration. Reforming the regulatory side now leaves the possibility of coming back for the public option on its own. You do understand that you allowed to try to reform something more than once, right?

As for the millions of voters, this is a big country, millions of voters are going to pissed off by any outcome--I'm going to be pissed off if the Democrats prove once again that they are incapable of seeing the forest through the trees whereas you are going to be pissed off if any bill is passed that doesn't contain a public option, no matter what else it does, and we'll both be happy but there will still be millions out there pissed off if a bill with a public option passed. I believe that the real reforms to the regulatory side of HC are essential, just as having a non-profit, robust, publicly funded insurance option is also essential to long-term reform. Hell, I think we'd be better off with single-payer which would solve both sides of this problem. I hope that this debate can be turned around in the next week with a cogent and coherent explanation of the benefits of the public option and that the final bill contains it. But if that isn't possible, I don't believe that no bill at all is the better outcome than a flawed bill.