Sure, let's make the insurance companies richer by forcing citizens to give them money or violate the law. Will that make me a criminal?

Does this satisfy anyone who wants the public option?

for $100, jeralyn! ding, ding, ding! oh look, it's the "Daily Double"!

on a more serial note, this is raising absurdity to the level of an art form. if there's no public option, right out of the chute, why waste everyone's time?

unfortunately, this is what happens when a barely-dry-behind-the-ears politician is elected president; obama doesn't really seem certain what he wants, and hasn't the long-term muscle or political smarts to adequately use his party's advantage in congress.

forget JFK, what we need is a reincarnated LBJ ("if you grab a man by the b*lls, his heart and mind will follow.") in the oval office.

this was a huge concern of mine, with regards to then candidat obama: he's a one-trick pony, and his trick is getting elected, not actually governing.

Where is the public option?  It sure isn't in the first part.  But a tax increase is.  That will never fly with ANY republican and most of the Blue Dogs.  They might not even get the 51 votes for that mess.  The second part won't fly because of the penalties.  

So, where again is the public option?  Is it in the purple or mauve part that we don't see?  

Sheeze.  Every one of these stinks.  It's all junk.  

And, as I said in another thread, they can't get the budget part passed without reconciling the horrible deficit forecast by the CBO. $239 billion more in the hole.

I guess the Dems are subconsciously angling for us to create a viable third party, after all.

How do you get Universal Health Insurance?
Easy.
You make everyone buy it and if they don't, you fine them.

Terrible leadership, no consistent message, not enough consideration of what the people want, the wild goose chase of seeking bipartisanship that only resulted in weaker and weaker proposals - this is the majority party and its president in action?

  A "strong" public option would be acceptable to me as incremental movement in the right direction.I'd consider a "strong" public option to be a government sponsored program providing subsidized coverage at below-market prices and which had the the ability to provide coverage to a large number of broadly situated (geographically, financially and in terms of health care needs) people. I'd want the government plan to be available not just to those who cannot find private market insurerance individually or through employee benefit program; i'd want both individuals to be able to purchase from it and for businesses to enroll to obtain coverages for their employees.

Just forget the whole thing, and we'll throw the lot of you out and start over when the situation has deteriorated to the point where even the people with the mentality of Barney Frank's dining room table can see that single payer is the only way to go.

President Obama has invited conservative radio host Michael Smerconish to broadcast his radio show at the White House today. Smerconish plans to use this afternoon's show to air "pointed direct and substantive questions about health care" from listeners.

What?  Single payer advocates cannot get within a mile of the WH, but the door's open for conservative radio hosts...

Maybe we'll know more after this (also from Think Progress):

Obama will be rallying Organizing for America supporters around health care reform in a conference call at 2:30 p.m. ET today. Obama will "update supporters on what's happening in D.C. and around the country, and he'll lay out our strategy and message going forward."

Wonder which dimension we'll be hearing about today.

The dems still need to come up with some details of how every part of this will work before we can say who this helps (e.g. who is covered and what they pay and how the insurance companies or doctors will fare).  I am skeptical that they will utlimately pass something that helps my family more than it helps UnitedHealth, but I am willing to be surprised.

But right now dems are just rearranging the deck chairs by announcing a new procedural approach to writing bills.  It is another way of stalling before actually writing any bills.  And there is still no public guidance from Obama on what he considers a must-have (other than the desire that some sort of reform--a.k.a. change--take place).

how good those rates would be would probably depend on the size and the health of the group

Under no circumstances.

There also must be a specific outline of the public option and the "mandate" and its costs at every income and dependent level has to be clearly explained and it should be available to all including employers in lieu of private insurance.  A public option should be just that, available to the entire public.  

More unnamed sources and people speaking privately.

In fact, there's no reference to any source for this story until 'graph six, and here the only sources suggested are "congressional aides."

And one of the few on-the-record sources suggests the opposite of the notion the story is peddling:

"We will not make a decision to pursue reconciliation until we have exhausted efforts to produce a bipartisan bill," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid.

51 votes for public option, exchanges, subsidies and taxes.

60 votes for pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps (I'd like to see the Repubs filibuster that!).

They lost.  They need to get over it.

You vote for them out of office. But in a democracy, more people may vote for the person you call a "crook." Of course, we could just institute a new system whereby Mexboy and a few other bloogers rule by dictate. That could work better.
No one to blame but the people in a democracy.

I wasn't placing blame, nor was I implying I want to rule the world, or that I know how to solve the problems. That is why I asked.