And what about Obama? He singles out OLYMPIA SNOWE for praise, and promises to stand with this right wing hag rather than Senator Rockefeller who correctly notes this legislation is deeply flawed and doesn't go nearly far enough.

Obama has made it abundantly clear to any and all that are paying attention that he stands with those right of center, the corporatists, and the militarists

Keep the change

The battle for health care was lost in the media, nowhere else.

Every person who protested, blogged or called their representative would've better spent their time demanding equal access to the public's airwaves via a new and improved fairness doctrine combined with anti-trust action against our country's media megaliths.

We were fighting on the wrong battlefield.

Our loss was predictable.

The great masses of our society, most who are now working from paycheck to unemployment check, have still never heard about, let alone understand single-payer health care.

Even the most brainwashed Limbaugh acolyte would embrace guaranteed health care for life, paid for with a fair progressive tax,...IF ONLY HE KNEW ABOUT IT.

So while we prepare, ten years down the road as Donna writes, let's learn from our mistakes.

The fight can only be won when we control the conversation. Not when we're forced to backpeddle and spend all our time on the defensive refuting nonsense such as death panels and government takeovers.

We must regain control of the media if we ever wish to achieve a true health care victory.

Or any victory for that matter.

WOW, what a pessimistic and melancholy piece, we can only hope the character of our elected leaders and business community is not as dark as Donna portrays.

Another perfectly truthful article by Donna Smith.

But I'd say it would have to be redone sooner than ten years if it passes....2013 would be the time, this bill is unaffordable, unworkable, doesn't even provide Universal Care (20 to 30 million still uncovered depending on whose figure you use) and is more than likely illegal.

Wait till all the young folk find out that they are going to have to pay each month, the average worker finds out that Cadillac plan they keep talking about was their plan and now they are going to have pay a premium.

If this plan was imposed on Americans by England, we'd immediately declare war on them.

Shame on this Congress and this President.

The salient feature of the Senate Finance Committee bill, as Ms Smith observes, is:

"Everyone buys the defective product or else."

I choose the "or else."

If enough people resist this unconscionable, criminal corporate rip-off, facilitated by bought-and-paid-for legislators, we can bring the health care system to its knees, and force real reform: single-payer Medicare for All. The system is near its sustainable limits in any case. It won't take much resistance to tip it over.

Maybe Doctors without borders wont have to leave the country.

In any other civilized country, those polititians would be arrested for taking bribes.

In the USA, its just "campaign contributions"

Bought and paid for.

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

The Senate should be abolished. It is an elitist anti-democratic body. Baucus ought to be tarred and feathered and paraded throught the streets with screaming angry mobs spitting upon him in disgust.

This is where the single payer advocates go wrong. By giving too much emphasis on insurance and not taking all advantages of single payer into account such as putting the clamps on drug price gounging and offering reasonable tort reform unlike the Republican version of "tort reform", guess who wins? I can imagine the insurance companies reading these articles and comments and laughing at us. We all hate those ripoff insurance companies and for plenty of good reasons so let's stop talking about "insurance" and let's bring out all the qualities of single payer health care into the spotlight. Maybe then our odds of getting single payer passed will improve and the big insurance companies can be put on the defensive. What do you think?

Here's a quote from a Republican...Senator Grassley....just to show that even a blind squirrel can stumble acroos the truth in a snowstorm occasinally..........

“The American people have to be aware that the Democrats are doing something here that has never been done before. For over 225 years, the federal government has never told Americans that they have to buy health insurance,” says Grassley. “Now the Democrats will add new taxes related to the mandates. The IRS will collect them. And, when this is all said and done, we’ll still have 25 million Americans without health insurance.”

25 million Americans still without health insurance, what the hell's the difference with what we have now except it will cost more and we add a lot of other new taxes immediately.

This is a tax bill at a time when raising taxes guarantees more unemployment.

I personally am fed up with people like Donna Smith--an otherwise admirable fighter for single payer--letting Obama almost completely off the hook in their analyses.

Sure, she mentions his tantalizing rhetoric, but only hints at his betrayal of that rhetoric. She places the onus mainly on Baucus and Braley, as though the entire mainstream Democratic contingent in Congress were not complicit in this travesty, as though they all--including Obama--had not conspired to crush single payer from the very start, as though they all--including Obama--had not conspired to push a watered-down public option that, even if enacted, will neither control ballooning costs nor significantly expand coverage--in short, consumer fraud.

Why is Donna Smith pulling her punches on Obama/Reid/Pelosi and focusing on Baucus? Her narrative is as much a lie as any boilerplate propaganda from Fox News--just as misleading, because it diverts attention from the main culprits and subtly implies that if only the "good" mainstream Dems had their way, we would have real reform.

But HR3200--the product of the "liberal" Dems--is no better than Baucus's bill, and Smith knows it.

Why won't she go there? Is she smoothing out the road so she can lie down for these same phonies again in 2010 and 2012?

Donna--as long as you keep your suction cups attached to these Democrats, including Obama, you will be sabotaging what you claim to be your real goal--single payer.

Until you loosen those suction cups, you will be unable to see or speak the truth that will set us all free from the chokehold of the private insurers.

Name ALL the names, Donna--the villains in this piece include Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer--the whole lot. By focusing on Baucus you are letting most of the culprits off the hook and diverting attention from the real reasons for the failure of health-care reform.

Donna's pessimism is too early. Remember, if 38 or more progressive Democrats in the House vote against a bad bill, it fails. They need 218 to pass anything.

There are a number of positive scenarios in this round of legislation:

• The House progressives demand and get a robust public option tied to Medicare plus five percent, then it is rejected in conference and the progressives vote down the bill. It would teach Obama and the Democratic Party leaders not to disrespect their progressive colleagues by taking Medicare for All off the table. If this happens that would be good, and then we take up the fight in January, 2010.

≠ The House progressives demand and get a robust public option and the Senate Democrats cave to progressive pressure from the House and their human constituencies and reject their inhuman corporate backers and vote in a robust, good bill that paves the way to Medicare for All.

The really bad scenario is for the progressives to cave and go cowardly again, as Donna's article presumes.

We'll see, won't we?