The current versions of the bills are horrible. Sure they do some good things, like making it illegal to deny coverage for a preexisting condition. Is it going to reduce costs? Is it going to cover everybody?

Unfortunately we don’t focus on fixing the obstacles to true reform; such as creating term limits and real campaign finance reform. If we would had spent all this time focusing on doing those things first, we wouldn’t be sitting here arguing about how to save the public option (which none of us really wanted anyways), but rather we would be arguing about how to best sell and implement a single payer system. But I digress…

If the public option is removed or even further watered down, I will be contacting my representatives and demanding that they either remove the mandate from the bill, or just vote it down.

That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be a good idea bill something opposite to continual extension of patents, but it is a separate issue, and can be dealt with separately. In fact, this extension of patents meme has been ongoing for some years now; it’s not going to be easy to reverse the trend. For my part, it’s not worth cancelling everything good in the possible bill on that issue.

OTOH, if they make it based on triggers, that might be worth trashing the whole thing, because I think that would make it pretty useless.

I fear the end result of this so-called reform will be a health care system that’s an even bigger disaster than what we’ve got now.

I pray we see some miraculous changes through amendments, but it’s really not looking good as far as I can tell.

In the meeting he focused on how the economic engine of the last 30 years, essentially debt-financed consumer spending, asset bubbles and Wall Street casino gambling, hasn’t worked, and how we need to create a new model. He listed two key goals: 1) re-regulating the financial sector (and I’ll have more on that later, he basically thinks the current bills won’t work); 2) re-creating the manufacturing base of the economy, along with our R&D and technology sectors, which we’re losing at a rapid pace.

Looking forward to that ‘re-regulating the financial sector’ commentary.
And from what I can see of the current financial reform proposals, they aren’t going to be effective.
Plus, they fail to account for the fact that there were regulations in place that simply were not used — a problem that no legislation can fix.

Time to change the narrative.
People might have to shift from spending their time day trading to you know… ‘making stuff’ and providing services. What a concept, eh?

Rahm tried ta finesse union support for corpoate healthcare “reform” by promisin’ EFCA legislation next year…but it won’t work and the power of anti-abortion politics in the Democratic Party will be broken by organized labor.

Careful, Brother Rat, I can give ya some “bizarre”.

You lament the weakness of the unions at the moment that the unions are advancin’ behind the politics of economic justice…the unions in old workin’ class areas that have been divided by wedge issues like abortion are the only force that can break the old Reagan coalition and they will do it without any help from folks like you who wail about the weakness of organized labor.