Once its passed they will hate you now but thank you later.

It a moral obligation to get health care for everyone.

If I was Obama I would play hard ball with the the blue dogs.  Johnson would also let you know what the consequences would be if you did not vote on a bill he wanted.  If the blue dogs are worried they will not get re elected if they vote with Obama then Obama can also make sure they don't get re elected if they vote against his bill.

This would be a nightmare.

Thet seem to have lost track of the fact - a fact Republicans understand and have been quite open about for decades - that passing a popular health care bill will make voters love Democrats and passing an unpopular one, or perhaps none at all, will make voters hate them. The Republicans were always going to oppose whatever the Democrats came up with, I just didn't know the Dems would let them do that while also letting them work to make sure anything they came up with is really unpopular.

i have concluded, based on a thorough analysis of all the evidence, that it was never the intent of pres. obama to do anything tangible about health care delivery in the US, ever. if it were, it would have been done by now, with a strong public option.

by throwing it to the "group o' six", and eviscerating anything worthwhile out of a potential program, ostensibly to gain a "bi-partisan" bill, he ensured that exactly nothing would happen; the progressive dems won't vote for it, and no republican would vote for anything, short of a total transfer of cash from the treasury to the insurance and pharma companies.

this effectively kills it, while allowing obama to say he tried.

The recent debates surrounding health care reform have served well to unearth a glut of ugly truths buried in modern American culture.  If President Obama has any hope of preserving the integrity of his Administration or, for that matter, the Democratic process, he will not only need to acknowledge these realities but he must implement a crash course in their origins and purposes.  

First and foremost, the Republican Party is a relatively small group of white men that, for all intents and purposes, owns the United States of America.  The latest census has revealed that one percent of the American population is in possession of twenty-three percent of its entire wealth.  With the exception of a few scattered idealists, these individuals are Republicans.  In order for this group to expand its power and increase its wealth, it is in need of a constant supply of capital.  The largest pool of resources is the United States government.  Every American employed or otherwise, is required, by law, to contribute to this pool.  In order to gain access to these funds, this consortium of power brokers has populated the legislature with highly paid operatives who protect the interests of the consortium and direct tax revenues to these private interests.  To produce the illusion that these legislators represent, "the will of the people," rather than the agendas of these private interests, the Republicans employ any and every devious tactic necessary to guarantee the votes required to control the cash flow.  The most effective means of achieving this goal necessitates the exploitation of the ignorance, racism, and unfounded fears within the Republican's core constituents.  In essence, these legislators pretend to protect and serve a population to whom they have no connection or loyalty.  In fact, most of the people who go to war and die to protect "American interests abroad," are harvested from this population.  As far as the party is concerned, they are expendable.  This is not a new concept, in fact, this grand experiment known as the United States of America, was founded on this premise.  The authors of The Declaration of Independence were not a group of passionate civil libertarians but a close-knit consortium of entrepreneurs with an accurate accounting of the vast revenues siphoned off by the Crown.  These individuals were eager to put those funds to work on their own behalf.  They provided the commoners with a sound bite to serve as a battle cry, "taxation without representation," and sent them out to do the dirty work.  A great example of this is that of John Hancock who amassed his wealth by smuggling rum from the West Indies and selling it without paying taxes to the King.  His vision included not only the profits from the legal sale of alcohol but also the benefits from access to the taxes imposed upon it.  The fact is, alcohol tax doubled immediately after the British were cut out of the transaction along with taxes on gunpowder and any goods imported from Europe.  

It is also vital to note that whoever controls the flow of information will be directly responsible for the formulation of public opinion.  Despite the barrage of Republican attacks on the so-called, `liberal media,' most syndicated outlets including CBS and ABC, are owned by Republican interests or controlled by Republican shareholders.  Furthermore, many of the largest advertisers are also conservatively driven.   One must only reflect on the number of pharmaceutical advertisements embedded in nightly news broadcasts.  The most notorious illustration of this phenomenon is the Fox News Network, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and subsidized by Republican interest groups, as well as the RNC.  This outlet is owned by the same corporation responsible for producing supermarket tabloids, the same ones that reported that Michael Jackson was in fact a space alien.  Fox News has successfully exploited the racism and ignorance mentioned above with the sanction of party leaders.  They encourage and applaud comments by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.  These two individuals are identical in their sociopathic narcissism.  Both are paid phenomenal amounts of money and, at the same time, are completely powerless in their personal lives.  Both are powerless over their food intake and their drug and alcohol consumption.  Both likely pay for sex and, judging by their identical psychological profiles, both would qualify for a substantial discount resulting from light duty.  They empower themselves by manipulating the malleable minds of the superstitious and ignorant readers of the National Enquirer.  Furthermore, the power to repulse is still power.  Beck and Limbaugh have one item on their combined agenda, to incite and provoke the murder of the President of the United States.  They are surely in their element.