Poll: Loss Of Public Option Causes Big Increase In Opposition To Health Care Bill

I suggest reading Kos' "20 Answers" at dailykos.com. It's a reasoned - and ultimately winning - argument in favor of killing this bill as it stands. It doesn't start out 50 yards in front of you if you like this bill.

The more I hear about this bill, the closer I am to Dean's position. The mandate is in. Rescission is still an option for insurance companies. This looks like it's going to end up making health care insurance more expensive for middle class Americans who are struggling.

I'm not shooting it down, but there's no way I can advocate moving forward with it.

I don't think so. The Democratic Party is simply too entrenched with Big Business now. I thought Obama might be able to pull it off but no. And if he can't do it after the Bush Dark Age, the Dems just can't get it done. Time to look elsewhere. It won't be easy but it is possible. For god's sake, look at what the TeBaggers have done!

Yeah, more fragmentation into hardened ideological blocks, that's what we need in this country.

Third party vaporing is just typical grass is greener on the other side of the sense bullshit by people who can't reconcile themself to the imperfection of democracy and human nature. Things deemed sacred principles have to be compromised in order to create a governing majority in a democracy no matter how many damn parties there are in the system. When no one does it, you have chaos and paralysis, like in Italy back in the days when they used to change governments every three days.

In a multiparty system, you get to feel more pure on election day than you do in a two party system. That's the only real difference. The day after the election in a multiparty system, a government has to be formed, deals have to be cut, compromises get made, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the disillusioned purehearts who bear none of the responsibility of governing or of failing to govern begins. Same tune, different key.

Hmm...

Progressives (East/West Coast Liberals - Sanders, Wyden)
Democrats (Blue Dogs - Webb, Nelson)
Republicans (Pro-Business Corporates - Snowe, McCain)
Conservatives (Religious Right - Grassley, Enzi, Inhofe, etc.)

...or something like that?

No problem. I interpreted it the way you meant it.

"...the notion that the WH was simultaneously AWOL from the debate and yet pulling all the strings to create the exact outcome we're seeing."

These things are not mutually exclusive. Actually they are parts of the same process. Publicly he wasn't pushing much. His last public speech on health care was in Sept. where he put the $900 billion cap on it.
You may be right that we will never know what went on behind the scenes but we've always heard that he's playing 11 demensional chess while everyone is playing checkers. So is a guy who's that sharp NOT working behind the scenes? Or is the Chess stuff a bunch of bullshit?

No...there's universal coverage in MA. But we also have the most expensive health care in the world. And it keeps getting more expensive as the quality goes down. And, from what I understand about the legislation under consideration is that its regulation is much weaker (more regressive) than that in MA. It would also effectively gut state regulations, allowing insurers to form interstate compacts and apply regulations in states with almost no regulation to customers in states where regulations are strong. That's just one example of how proposed legislation allows insurers to game the system. And once it's in place, it will be very difficult to overturn. Who will decouple our resulting dependence upon and fealty to private insurers? Progressives? Not with the backing they've received from this President. No, the legislation as it stands either needs to be improved or shitcanned. And if you think it will be improved...well, fine, but their latest move was to throw out a proposed exceedingly watery public option (open to very few people, tied to a level playing field negotiating status, unable to form synergies with existing federal programs like Medicare, Medicaid and VA, and perhaps [if it had gotten that far]tied to triggers and looking very much like coops) and the Medicare buy in.