And remember, no one is claiming to reduce costs anymore. They are claiming to “bend the cost curve down”, which is a little like saying buying a Toyota “bends the cost curve down” if you were planning to buy a Lexus.

The two hinges of the ideological movement to institute health care for everyone is that people can’t afford insurance, and many people are uninsured. I don’t think insurance coverage has much to do with life expectancy, but the Democrats obviously do. The proposed system still leaves 20 million people uninsured; the Democrats must believe they are not worth saving. A pretty brutal assessment, and only the beginning as we see “comparative effectiveness” studies — influenced heavily by politics and special interests — that limit choice in health care.

“Which means the guy who tries to be the 60th Senator this time will enrage the base.” – nb

As opposed to the way the base embraced and cheered the 59th (Lieberman) and 60th (Nelson) Senators the first time through.

Oops. I forgot an important word:
All the guy who tries to be the 60th Senator this time will enrage the base.

If there was any way for a Senator to profit by being the 60th vote this time you’d have an excellent point. But there just isn’t. So anybody who tried would be a) the laughingstock of DC, because you can’t amend a Conference Report, and b) join Lieberman in hell as far as the base is concerned.

@Doomed
You are forgetting an important part of paying for the bill: cost control.

You could claim you don’t believe it will work — I wouldn’t neccesarily disagree with you on that, but I support them anyway because if these cost controls don’t work no cost controls will ever work and we’re fucked — but it is intellectually dishonest to ignore them completely.

As for your claims regarding the bill you contradict yourself. On the one hand “Almost no one likes this bill,” and on the other “the next time the gop gets these kinds of numbers they will outlaw GAY marriage or whatever bill they see fit that THEIR BASE WANTS.” Either nobody likes this bill or a significant minority (the Democratic base) likes it.

As for the Gay Marriage claim, they can’t do that. The Federal Government cannot force Iowa to stop issuing marriage licenses to gay people. Even if the Feds could your argument is irrelevant.

It’s virtually impossible to think of a scenario where the GOP gets 60 Senate seats, the entire house, and the Presidency in the foreseeable future. As time goes on this gets less and less likely because the GOP base is divorced from the fastest-growing groups in the country. Latinos, blacks, and young whites are much more left-leaning then the current GOP. You could expand that base pretty easily if you’d just compromise on a few issues — notably Affirmative Action and Illegal Immigration — but that ain’t happening any time soon.

In the unlikely event they do get 60 Senate seats, 218 House Seats, and the White House they will do what they want. They won’t look back and say “Geez those nice guys didn’t screw us on healthcare. I guess we’ll have to drop this Christian Nation stuff, not cut taxes, and leave Social Security alone”

You do make a good point that this bill only has support from the left. Essentially this bill is highly unpopular with the progressives. Moderates, Conservatives.

Almost no one likes this bill and yet the government is going to pass a 2.5 trillion over the full 10 years its in effect while only promising 900 billion in taxes.

So Somewhere down the road another congress is left holding the bag of an ill conceived bill that is fiscally irresponsible and will most likely put the Democrats out of bidness for 4-6 years.

And if they do this. If they pass this bill…then rest assured that when the next time the gop gets these kinds of numbers they will outlaw GAY marriage or whatever bill they see fit that THEIR BASE WANTS.

Not saying its RIGHT…just saying this is the precedent this congress is setting for future bodies to point to as justification for doing stupid things in the name of their BASE.

And now were hearing that the democrats want to vote away the Filabuster so they can pass stuff right and left….Im sure that will go over good with them when the GOP is in charge.

“Which means the guy who tries to be the 60th Senator this time will enrage the base.” – nb

As opposed to the way the base embraced and cheered the 59th (Lieberman) and 60th (Nelson) Senators the first time through.

A Conference Report cannot be amended. It can be filibustered, but all filibustering the report will do is kill the bill totally. Which means the guy who tries to be the 60th Senator this time will enrage the base. And gain nothing politically by being against it after he was for it.

Unless something huge changes in conference committee, that is. A new public option would count, and some changes to the language on abortion would count; but pretty much anything else is fair game.

Frank, the tax isn’t on the wage-earner, it’s on the insurer. So if a company sells a $26,000 policy they’ll pay a tax on the last $1,000. De facto you’re right. It’s the same as a tax on the dude buying the policy, and many of those dudes make less than $250,000. But de jure there’s a difference.

The combined bill will pass to the detriment of this great country.

BTW – I never heard anyone in the Tea Party movement refer to “tea bagging” anyone, or to themselves as “tea baggers”. It was a leftist media smear by the likes of Keith Olbermann, and most of those guilty of using it have apologized.

Nick – the excise tax does break Obama’s commitment to not raise taxes on “anyone earning less than $250,000″, but we all knew he was lying when he said that, so I suppose there’s no real harm. Those that believed him will grow up a bit, perhaps.

Doomed is probably right; the Dems will cheat if they can’t get the 60, because as mw notes, it is a “save my presidency” issue now and not about the original issues (since it doesn’t solve either the uninsured problem or the cost issue). Falling on your sword for honor’s sake may be noble, but convincing someone else to go on the suicide mission for you is always harder. It will be a hard vote in the House.

I should enjoy November, 2010 very much.

“Will 60 votes be there for Sen. Reid in the spring?” – FH

The votes will be there. Once this stopped being about Health Care reform, and instead became the “Save My Presidency” Bill, passage of something called Health Care reform became a foregone conclusion. What the bill does or does not do is irrelevant (well except for the payoffs to deserving Senators and Representatives). The only important thing now is that something, anything passes.

So it will.

It will be fun to watch though – expect some serious arm wrestling among the Dems. After all, who wouldn’t want to be the 60th Senator in – and get that tasty last payoff. Yum.

The public option is mandated. Abortion is funded. The bill is passed. Goes back to the senate and Reid uses the nuclear option of 51 votes.

Allowing 9 to bug out and not support the bill.

They already know the country hates this bill no matter what is passed.

They might as well pass what they really want. Government run health care. Then they can claim they really used 60 votes to get the bill to a vote while spinning it wildly with the House passed it with a large margin. The public really wants a public option…pretending that all those polls that show NO to a this bill and hell no to a GOVERNMENT run public option is just GOP spin and everyone knows they are tea party of NO obstructionists who hate America.

Thats my prediction. Do the Democrats dare?

Harry Reid promised that any bill sent to the presidents desk would have a public option in it. Do they dare?

oh, and those “porn-influenced smears”? Right, blame the media for pointing out that a bunch of rightwing homophobes had chosen perhaps the worst label for THEMSELVES.

If you don’t want to be labeled something, spend a little time beforehand and don’t label yourself something that has multiple meanings. I have a kid in middle school who was savvy enough to see that label as bad news. Maybe if the fringe right weren’t so cloistured in their own little world they might have seen that coming. We wouldn’t want the right to actually investigate anything they’ve already made up thier minds about, though.

The main fights in Conference will be on the Excise tax, subsidy levels, and abortion. The public plan is dead because we need Lieberman. Many leftists will bitch and moan, but losing them means picking up Blue Dogs so they have virtually no negotiating clout. Stupak will almost certainly make it into the final legislation — if it couldn’t get through the House without that Amendment before it won’t do it without it now.

I sincerely hope the Senate keeps the Excise Tax in. The Unions hate it, but the Excise Tax is a start at getting rid of the Employer Tax Exemption, and I’ve yet to see a wonk who did not agree that Exemption was not a major reason our health system is so screwed up.

IMO the combined bill has to pass. The Dems have pissed off the right by trying to do this. Moderates don’t like the controversy. And leftists are crying bloody murder because our pet public option was killed by Lieberman. Dropping reform won’t help that at all. In terms of turnout passing reform will help because it will give leftists a win, and thus a reason to vote next November. It will also end the controversy, but dropping the bill would engender further controversy over whose fault this was.