Passing this bill is like commandeering the Titanic to turn it a fraction of a degree away

[smalll]

from its course --

so we won't hit the iceberg that the fucked-up American health care system faces so head-on -- we'll still hit it, but not so directly. So the Titanic won't sink QUITE as fast as it would have. And a few more people will be saved. (A few.)

Why not turn it away from the iceberg entirely? Away from the iceberg of skyrocketing premiums, ridiculous deductibles, denials of service, and the whole job-based serfdom of it all in the first place. Why not? Maybe those who say that single payer or a public option just don't have the votes are right. If so, why pass anything at all?

Look, today, when bad things happen with healthcare -- when the premiums and the deductibles rise, when people lose their insurance, when the blood-sucking insurance companies find yet another creative way to deny service -- no-one gets blamed. Oh sure, the insurance companies get blamed, but no party does -- our fucked-up system has developed so baroquely over so many years that no-one curses out the Repubs or the Dems for each latest health care atrocity ----

But once we pass this bill, Obama and the Democrats OWN the health care system -- everything bad that will, inevitably, continue to happen, will be blamed on them.

Put it this way; if we don't have the cojones to cut through the Gordian knot, but instead can do nothing but wrap a couple extra coils of rope around it, how does this help????

[dflprincess]

1. Actually I recently saw something that said the Titanic would have been better off

if it had hit the iceberg head on. The attempt to turn the ship is what ripped the side of it open.

We would have been better off if Congress and Obama had dealt with our health access iceberg head on rather than trying to avoid it with this insurance scame.

[vaberella]

8. Exactly. I was just about to say that. But this is a piss poor analogy anyway.

As for your last statement. If your speaking about single payer or even a great public option within the bill...expect this bill to go no where. Absolutely no where. Expect no one to have anything. Because the Blue Dogs would have disliked it even if it was scored well and the Repubs would have massacred the Dems on message.

[napi21]

2. I would have loved single [ayer too, but the majority of people

in the US are simply too afraid of such a drastic change. Americans have always been afraid of any change & scared sh*tless of major change! It's not only health care. It's everything. Why do European cars get much better fuel economy than ours? Mostly because Europe forced it's people, through high taxes on fuel, to go almost entirely diesel. Why is a college education almost free in Europe? Because higher taxes charge everyone to cover the costs. Just look at how Americans scream & yell when any tax increase is even mentioned, let alone discussed as a possibility We don't think long term. We think of today and MAYBE tomorrow and that's it.
\
i know I'll never see any major change to that attitude in my lifetime.

[LeftyAndProud60]

3. But this bill at least turns the wheel. And improving it will turn it even more. Not passing it

will do what exactly. People need to get off their high horse and learn to like this bill and continue to pressure congress to improve it. THere is no way of passing this great progressive bill some of u lust for. You will literally die before that bill is passed. Especially if this bill fails. U wont get another POTUS to risk his presidency if Obama fails.

[mkultra]

4. a minor course correction early enough can avert anything

[LibDemAlways]

5. What those who are championing the passage of this bill

are choosing to ignore is how it's going to be received. The assumption seems to be that people will like it - that it will be popular. That it will help the Dems and Obama politically.

Have people learned nothing from the last decade? The media has been laying low, discussing the process but not the specifics of the bill. Even the R's have been cagey about it - calling it Obamacare and making up shit about "death panels," but not yet revealing the actual content. Why? I suspect because they are waiting until after Obama signs it to spring the mandate on the American public and beat them over the head relentlessly with it. Pretty soon people will get the message that their souls have been sold to the insurance companies, and Obama and the Dems are to blame. The fallout from this turkey is going to be huge. It will be about as popular as a turd in the punch bowl, and the Dems will be stuck owning it.

[Aramchek]

6. that's, like, just your opinion, man

[LibDemAlways]

7. Who said it wasn't? And perhaps I'm totally mistaken and

people will think it's terrific and embrace it wholeheartedly. We'll have to wait and see. And if I'm wrong, I'll be the first to say so.

However, if I'm right, this thing could be catastrophic for the Dems - and then we all suffer.