(cross-posted @HuffPo)

This is all true about the importance of getting something done, and feeling good about it when it does. However, that doesn’t make it any less necessary to fight tooth and nail for the best possible starting point, right now.

Gee, I wish I could post on HuffPo...

Oh, that's right. They can't handle dissenting opinions over there..

Anyways, question for ya, nypoet22.

Do you HONESTLY consider DunselCare as "the best possible starting point"??

Seriously???

Michale.....

This is all true about the importance of getting something done, and feeling good about it when it does. However, that doesn’t make it any less necessary to fight tooth and nail for the best possible starting point, right now.

And in other football news ...
1. The Cincinnati Bearcats beat West Virginia to remain undefeated
2. The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Steelers on Sunday

These are phrases not heard often in Southern Ohio when it comes to football. Undefeated. Beat the Steelers.

-David

Cuz DunselCare, even if it does pass, won't have a Public Plan.

The votes in the Senate are just not there. And there doesn't appear to be a way to get there from here.

I don't even think that the "Nuclear Option" will save DunselCare. Correct me if I am wrong, but reconciliation can only be used on legislation itself, not on procedural matters pertaining to legislation.

I might be wrong on that, but I don't think so.

So, since Reid is going to need 60 votes to squelch a filibuster and he is at least 3 short (probably a few more because of the abortion debacle) it's looking more and more like DunselCare is going to die in the Senate.

At the very least, it's going to be pushed back til after the new year and then it will be even HARDER to get thru the Senate, due to mid-term elections.

DunselCare is a bad bad idea. It's too expensive, it doesn't do ANYTHING to reform anything, it creates another 110+ new bureaucracies and will cause the quality of care to go DOWN, not up.

The smart thing to do would be take half the money (or less) and beef up and expand Medicaid. Fix the problems with Medicaid and let IT be the so-called "Public Option"...

Remember that single mother I told you about a couple weeks back? Couldn't get a doctor to remove a kidney stone because of medicaid foulups.. Well, last week, she had to be rushed to the hospital. She went into acute kidney failure and had to have emergency surgery or she would die.

So, a relatively simply procedure that would have cost 4-5 thousand dollars became a life-threatening emergency that cost well over $30,000..

This is how the current "public option" rolls... Waste, fraud, incompetence all rolled up into a nice big fact bureaucracy..

And ya'all want ONE HUNDRED AND TEN PLUS ***MORE*** of these???

Where is the logic in that??

Doesn't it make MORE sense to fix the problems first??

Again, I ask the question that NO ONE (to date) has been able to answer.

Where is the evidence that the federal government can manage any kind of national health care program that is competent, fiscally sound and meets the needs of it's patients..

There is none. ZILCH, ZERO, NADA, NOTHING.

Yet I can point to a dozen agencies that are a morass of corruption, fraud, waste and incompetence.

Once again, we are at a definition of insanity. Doing the same things over and over and hoping for a different outcome..

Let's face facts. DunselCare is not about health care reform, health insurance reform or ANY kind of reform.

DunselCare may have started out that way, but now it is about one thing and one thing only.

DunselCare is about giving the Democrats and President Obama a desperately needed "win". After a long string of losses, bonehead plays and downright incompetent decisions (and NON decisions), Obama and Democrats MUST have DunselCare to show the American public, "See!!?? We CAN accomplish something!!!"

Unfortunately, that "something" is a bad piece of crap that will do infinitely more harm to the country and to Americans than good.

Once again, Democrats have maneuvered themselves into a perfect LOSE-LOSE situation. If DunselCare dies in the Senate then it will be the final nail in the coffin and guarantee a complete reversal in Congress in the 2010 elections. Republicans will have the "super" majorities and Democrats will be shaking their heads and wondering how they could have crashed and burned so quickly. If DunselCare actually passes and get's signed into law, then by 2012 all of America will see DunselCare for what it really is. A piece of garbage that doesn't do squat for Americans and simply makes their lives even worse. Under this scenario, the Congressional FlipFlop will happen in 2012 with the added bonus of the GOP re-taking the White House.

Time will tell....

But hay, take heart... Things aren't ALL bad, gloom and doom...

The Jags won on Sunday.... :D

Michale.....

Fails to pass.

Postulate a scenario where Lieberman and a few Senate Democrats support a GOP filibuster...

As you have said, if DunselCare doesn't pass this year, the chances of it going thru during an election year is slim and none and Slim just logged off... :D

Since we're 45 days (give or take) from the end of the year, I can't see how Congress can get anything to Obama's desk by the (yet another) deadline...

So, what do ya think will happen if DunselCare 2009 goes the way of HillaryCare 1994??

Michale.....

I think that Pres. Obama needs to come out and lead the push to get this package through by the end of the year. If nothing passes then there is nothing to build upon.

...Stan

Fails to pass? Or passes, but then fails as a program? Which are you asking?

-CW

Michale.....