Podesta Pushes Plan B For Health Care

Do it please

Reconciliation on a Medicare buy-in at 55 could pass and provide publicly visible benefits quickly. While having the House pass the Senate bill seems like a reasonable way to pass the bill, the process may appear illegitimate to some, and this bill won't have any effect for several years. Republicans would continue to demonize the bill and the process, with no benefits yet apparent to the public over two election cycles. There is real danger Democrats could lose and see the bill repealed before it takes effect. Furthermore, the Medicare buy-in would not include the controversial mandate, something even my liberal soul resents.

tone deaf establishment mouthpiece. You guys were correct.

all the reasons Dean gave for killing the Senate bill still exist. All the reasons the Nurses Union came out against the bill still exists, etc. etc. etc.

Everyone always said it would be fixed in conference, and now they want to go back on that as well. I can see why the House is reluctant to trust leadership or the Senate.

Yeah! progressives go pass a shitty bill and you can bank on Obama getting'em to fix it later.

Anyone remember FISA.Vote for it and once Obama becomes Prez he will restore FISA to it's orginal intent.

It's been over 1yr has FISA been fixed to it's original intent.

The Prez has no credibility.He is almost as believable as GWBush at this point.

People have wondered why Obama has no coattails, and why there is no Reagan-like realignment, but the answer seems obvious. Like Reagan, both are laying the groundwork and making the argument for conservatism, and the argument against progressivism, and embracing the ideology we just voted out every time people get fed up with the lack of forward movement.

He's like Eisenhower, in that he's not a Democratic champion or possibly even believer.

If he's honest about wanting to be a good one-term President rather than a bad two-termer, he'd pass HCR. He'd push for more stimulus. He'f fight for jobs.

If he's honest when he says he's not going to walk away just because it's hard, he wouldn't walk away before he even stepped up to the plate.

If he's honest about making the hard choices rather than the political ones, he'd make the hard choices rather than wetting himself, and if oratory is his only gift, he'd use it to lead and convince us of the right way to go, rather than following the failures of the past we 'thought' we were ridding ourselves of.