Are abortion and illegal immigrant care the main stumbling blocks? Or is it

[panader0]

the lobbying money? Many congressfolk are loathe to have the public option pay for abortions or for medical care for "illegals".
Many just want the money. And how does Big Pharm play into this?

[valerief]

1. IT'S ALWAYS THE MONEY. nt

[glinda]

2. Cut the umbilical cord now!

[teachableseconds]

3. The question of undocumented workers in one of spending more money,

so yeah, it's about the money and how much it's going to take.

If we didn't have these wars on our hands, we would have the money to support anyone's health care, regardless of citizenship status. But look at CA. Can anyone honestly say that the strain on government had NOTHING to do with undocumented workers using services? Hospitals were closing in border states way before this economic clusterf*ck in CA. Even in my state, a couple of hospitals (one over 100 years old) closed and 'patients without insurance' was cited as a major reason. Undocumented workers were part of that, along with unpaid Medicaid bills, I am sure...

[Enthusiast]

4. First and foremost

it is preserving the cash cow that private health insurance has become. Insurance was one thing twenty years ago, now it is something altogether different.

For me this healthcare reform is a test. It will determine how I feel about my country. I want to live in a representative democracy. What is the point in supporting any political candidate that has no intention of doing the publics will?

[truhavoc]

5. I don't think big pharma cares

I think is this all about the insurance companies. Big Pharma is likely to get a windfall, people that weren't able to get their needed prescriptions will be able to get them, no more cutting pills in half, and etc. I work for a major pharmaceutical wholesaler and I know that our CEO supports any option that extends coverage to all.

[madrchsod]

6. public option will not cover abortions

the hyde amendment makes sure the federal government will not fund abortions.

[iverglas]

7. they are wedge issues

In the last weeks of the campaign in California some years ago, before the vote on the proposition to adopt a single payer sytem, the filthy anti-choice brigade crawled out of the gutter and made payment for abortion the issue.

Not much more was needed, of course, to demonstrate the fundamentally vicious, right-wing nature of those outfits.

Until people stop succumbing to being wedged away from what is in their own interests, well, it's an uphill fight.

Abandoning one's own supporters and vulnerable segments of the population with genuine needs never strikes me as the right approach. But then these kinds of campaigns don't play well in Canada, so the situation tends not to have to be addressed.

Until the opposition to things like women's fundamental right to reproductive choice (and the right of same-sex couples to marry, and on and on) are just kicked in the teeth until they're dead, or at least marginalized, observers can really only wish you well. And wish you'd get the hell on with kicking them all in the teeth, given how otherwise they're going to be used to bite any progressive idea that ever comes along.

[dhpgetsit]

8. Those "issues" will be used

to drive activists to flood the reps with anti-reform phone calls and letters.

We have to be every bit as active as they are.