Could this HCR bill pass in any other form?

[kentuck]

Considering the present political realities, where they are fighting to get 216 votes, how many would they have gotten with a "public option" or a "single-payer option"?

Is this the only way the bill had a chance of passing? Can it be fixed once it is passed? Will it be easier to amend than to pass the bill?

Perhaps there are political realists that are smarter than you and I?

Maybe this is the start and not the finish? Otherwise, why are the insurance companies and the Republicans so opposed to the bill?

Just saying...

[zipplewrath]

1. yes, just look at Dennis

You can get people to support bills, if you work at it. There was never the kind of effort FOR the public option that we are seeing now to pass these 15 year old GOP ideas. Obama never went to a rally and called out Joe Lieberman or anyone else (that'd a been retarded) to vote for the public option.

And no, this will no more be "fixed" than NAFTA was, or than we will get negotiated prices on medicare perscriptions, or that the Patriot Act will be modified. And really, I'm fairly sure that congress done and tired of the subject and won't touch it again for a decade or more.


Just sayin'.....

[kentuck]

2. won't touch it for a decade or more ??

We should be in really great shape by then. The compassionate Republicans and the insurance companies will surely have all of us covered and prices will surely be lower than now. The market will take care of it.

[MineralMan]

4. The thing is that if it fails, they still won't look at it again for a long

time. So, it's either get something or get nothing at all. Sounds like you'd prefer nothing at all. I doubt that the people who will be helped by this bill would agree with that position. They might be dead before the issue comes up again.

That's the bargain. We get this bill, with all its faults, or we get nothing. Me? I prefer something to nothing, thanks.

It's supper time and we have hamburgers with mustard on them. You don't like mustard? No hamburger for you. That's what's for supper. Tough nuts.

[zipplewrath]

6. This isn't something

If there is anything "good" in this bill, it is that it will potentially accelerate the problem. The bad is very bad. The insurance companies are being placed, as a matter of law, as the sole conduits of healthcare. When the GOP gets ahold of this, it will get much worse. Can you imagine for just a moment what THEY will want to force us to buy?

[napi21]

3. I don't think there's any way to know what the vote would be

IF it had a PO. They'd lose some they have now & probably get some they don't have. We'll never know. As I understand it, they only need 51 votes in the Senate to amend a bill, but 60 to pass a new one. That's the main reason the House has to pass the Senate bill AS IS. Then they will vote on the fix which the Senate will pass AS IS.

[kentuck]

5. But they would never have gotten the 60 votes needed in the Senate...

if it had a public option in it. I think we all know that.

[Winterblues]

7. Republicans are opposed to anything Obama wants

The Insurance companies are not nearly as against this Bill as some would like us to think. They are on the verge of gaining thirty million new customers. I don't see them being against that..They are turning themselves into another "too big to fail" Industry...Republicans are simply not credible on any issue so why bother paying any attention to them what-so-ever?