Democrats and Republicans both serve the same masters. It's like Moe arguing with Larry, Curly and Shemp. The damage still gets done.

"If this health care fight finally taught congressional Democrats that Republicans will always tell insane lies and that they simply can't ever be appeased with policy changes, it just might have all been worthwhile".

What we are seeing here is a no holds bard effort to protect the absolute fraud of financial capitalism. The fraud of the health insurance industry and the fraud of Wall street are now under public scrutiny, and the capitalists are in total panic. Democratic socialism in these aspects of public need is the eventual answer

The chicanery of financial capitalism and its theft of real wealth for phantom wealth is now becoming apparent to the American people. These aspects of financial capitalism are destined to collapse before we can change it.

IMHO this author really needs to use a bit of critical thinking here. The Republicans made it clear that NONE of them would vote for this bill no matter what, so pandering to them served no purpose.

The public option was pulled because the faux party of the people did not want it. That is because their true constituents, the health care complex, did not want it. The abortion language was put into the bill because some Dems demanded it.

The "debate" was just kabuki theater for the masses. Each side took their appropriate positions, and donned the appropriate makeup. The Dems plastered themselves with a coating of concern for the average person, and a "honest" desire to work with the Republicans.

The Republicans coated themselves with irony and hypocrisy while the tried to paint a give away to private corporations as "socialism", and railed against a bill which supports their overall view that people should be subservient to corporations.

All this theater works only because the bulk of their audience is just so stupid that it can't critically think it's way out of a wet paper bag. So many just fall for the old game where a lie repeated enough will be believed to be the truth, when anyone with an once of commonsense realizes it is still a lie no matter how many times it gets repeated.

"Dems did not offer a truly socialized health care system like they have in the U.K."

TRULY SOCIALIZED ?, there is NOTHING socialized about Obamacare. Socialized systems, which run the gamut from providers (doctors and nurses) being employed by the gov. (U.K.) to single-payer where the government provides insurance to private providers (Canada), all have one thing in common... a centralized equal benefits program funded by the general tax fund.

Obamacare further fragments (as opposed to centralizes) an already fragmented system, including dumping many new unfunded mandates on each state, and mandating US citizens buy insurance from private corporations, and using general tax fund money (and money from fines collected from the uninsured) to selectively subsidize private corporations.
Obamacare also prevents Medicare from negotiating drug prices and extends US patents on drugs, thereby increasing the cost of drugs for Americans while all of the socialist systems negotiate drug prices.

During the 20th century Obamacare would have been categorized as a fascist program, however, 21st century revisionist history and political shell games by the Democratic and Republican Parties appear to have muddied the definitions of socialism, fascism and democracy.

Obama knows that if he argues when the tea partyiers call Obamacare socialist or fascist, he will need to go beyond the hope and change hype and expose the devil in the details of Obamacare.

In England, they have a proverb: "You may as well get hung for a sheep as for a lamb". If only the Democrats would learn that lesson.

Jon has hit the pin on the head --- and the pin-heads is us.

How long can Americans be tyrannized, peonized, fooled, screwed blue, and feudalized by the exact same EMPIRE hiding behind these two phony empire-parties?

This ruling-elite Global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, which controls our country by hiding behind the facade of its TWO-PARTY Rel. 2.0 'Vichy' sham of faux democracy, will not leave by asking nicely.

An arrogant, looting, and murderous EMPIRE will not respond to weakened citizens whose only recourse is to vote for 'R' or 'D' political shills owned by the exact same EMPIRE.

The only rational, intelligent, and brave thing for Americans to do --- before America passes Zimbabwe as the country with the highest GINI of Income INEQUALITY in the world --- is to join together in solidarity as informed citizens of the Global 'Anti-EMPIRE' Movement formed by Kevin Zeese, David Beito, and Ralph Nader, and to non-violently expose, confront, and then excise this cancerous tumor of EMPIRE which is hiding in plain sight in the burning kitchen of our former democracy.

It's not going to get better by 'hoping' for 'change' in the next EMPIRE-fixed (s)election, any more than it got better for Charlie Brown hoping each football season that Lucy would really hold the ball as she promised. We're going to keep falling on our asses if we continue to vote for either of these EMPIRE-controlled phony parties.

The winning 'pea' is not going to be under the next political 'shell' we stupidly vote for. Nor is the winning card going to come up for us in this friggin EMPIRE Three-Card-Monte scam.

The only way out (non-violently) is to turn over the tables, just as Jesus did to the money-changers in the phony temples, and to refuse to participate in this less visible and better disguised EMPIRE, just as he did with the Roman Empire, just as our founding fathers did in rejecting the British EMPIRE, as our working-class fathers against the Nazi EMPIRE, and as the Russian people did with the Soviet EMPIRE.

This last EMPIRE on earth --- this disguised Global corporate/financial/militarist TWO-PARTY 'Vichy' EMPIRE, nominally and temporarily headquartered and metastasizing in OUR country must be exposed, confronted, and excised from America by brave Americans working together to save our own country and the world from Empire's inevitable death-spiral.

The last cancer of EMPIRE is centered here today, and we must fight it at least as bravely as the Russian people did the next-to-the-last Soviet EMPIRE by simply refusing to cooperate and accept EMPIRE for ourselves and the world we all share.

As Hannah Arendt presciently warned of EMPIRE from her painful experience with the NAZI EMPIRE, "EMPIRE abroad (always) entails tyranny at home".

Its now almost too late to fight the vicious corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE that FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, MLK and others died fighting.

Are we going to let the 'Secret Team" of elitist Global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, with their sociopathic 'empire-thinking' control and certainly destroy our world, or are we going to cooperated together in solidarity and humanity with empathetic 'democracy-thinking' to finally excise EMPIRE from our earth.

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

They act surprised at the vehemence of the other side's criticism, as though they could appease it by doing as modest and ineffectual reform as they could. They hardly ever went to a core value such as Health Care as a Human Right or dared to suggest that the market mechanism might not be an appropriate mechanism to achieve it since markets distribute resources by ability to pay and not need. They got it full bore anyway. They have it coming. These duplicitous Dems want it both ways-- that they worship the invisible hand of the market too but think that a few fix ups, a few tweaks can make things right. This will play out and the day for true health reform will come again when the nation spits this out too, the next round will discredit market mechanisms as a way to provide health care and affirm it as a human right. Unfortunately that day has probably been delayed for ten years and the citizens of this country will have to go through more travail before that day comes. I hope I live to see that day and to see the discrediting of Democrats for the corrupt corporate shills that they are. Give me strength.

Everyone should go to the link on the individual mandate, than down to the table of state bills and amendments.

If the bill introduced here in Pennsylvania is any indication, their purpose is far more broad than just to nullify the federal mandate. The Pennsylvania bill would catch any kind of single-payer system in it's broad net too -indeed, from my reading of it, eliminating the possibility of single-payer seems to be it's primary purpose.

The political dynamic is taking a definite turn for the worse. The only way to defuse it will be an immediate repeal of the individual mandate.

Right On. I am a democratic socialist, but this is more like fascism than socialism, passing ever more power to the corporations and using the federal government for the enforcer.

It's socialism for the rich and they'll take everything you own and your very life if you get in the way of the profits or live near the oil or coal. My question though is how has Salon or FDL or Michael Moore changed the game. Where is the hard bargaining reform movement in the Democratic party?

"Bart Stupak (D-MI), through brilliant negotiation and an iron will, scored a huge victory for the "pro-life" movement"

Mr. Walker, if you actually believe this nonsense you wrote about Stupak, I must of course question your credibility. The "executive order" means nothing in this instance as Stupak surely knew and you should know.

I posted a year ago that Healthcare reform was a charade meant to use Congress's term to achieve 1 tiny 'achievement' that they can now parade for re-re-re-re-re-election.

Congress has spent more than an entire year on this, starting with that 'meant-to-fail' idea of having an ad-hoc sub-sub committee of 6 Senators, 3 from 'each' party, instead of say, allowing the existing sub-committee of 11 Ds and 8Rs to debate and craft 'our healthcare reform'.
Following came the 'town-hall' meetings, full of pre-programmed bluster, allowing Congress to spend their entire month-recess making Americans listen to healthcare reform and nothing else, certainly not the war.

They spent less than 1 day to get us trapped in the insane and DAFT war that we should be talking about and ending.
Oh yeah, 3 hours of debate about that this year, except the debate was stupid and meant to fail (and DK will parade 'I tried AGAIN! Re-re-re-re-re-re-re elect me, and next year I'll try to force the President to retreat from somewhere else!')

3 hours of debate on an insanity 8 years old.
Over a year on 'Healthcare Reform'.

Will there be no debate of war other than the upcoming $33 billion 'supplemental' ('unfunded spending') bill for more war?*.

As I will often do this year, I offer free this slogan for Democrats to use (it's a public service).

2010: Re-elect the Democratic Majority in Congress
Now is not the time for change

* and Nancy Pelosi will say "we promised no new unfunded spending in order to get into power, and we crowed about our accomplishment for as long as the news cycle lasted, but this is about supporting our troops, so she'll say...
"Peace? not now, not now, not now"
and the Democratic choruses sing "next year, next year, next year"

Throwing citizens to corporate wolves, in this case the health insurance wolves, by mandating that citizens purchase the biggest scam known as insurance is unforgivable. Technically, the Democrats who voted yes on the bill have forced socialization of losses and risks while privatizing what little benefits the bill might provide but isn't guaranteed given that Big Insurance is given 100% control of health care coverage while government washes its hands off on health care. Some people have said that this bill is the first step to single payer basing their claims on the German model which is similar to what passed except that the German system is strict against out of control profiteering while the US isn't. Others have correctly argued that single payer will be put out of reach as a result of this bill and it is based on the fact that this bill will give single payer a bad name and more people will misunderstand the idea. Here is my take. There is no doubt that this bill will make single payer harder to reach but since this is mandatory insurance and deregulated capitalism is here to stay, I still have a glimmer of hope that unlike mandating auto insurance, mandating buying health insurance from bad companies will force people to realize that all insurance is SCAM. That gives rise to the possibility that learning this lesson from this disaster the hard way will have the bizarre effect of bringing single payer back to the limelight from out of nowhere.

Among the health insurance contract aspects, a few things were fixed by Obama Care (at least 50 years late; what took the Democrats so damn long?) but many more were not fixed. For example, insurance companies can still deny payment for unusual and novel treatments even if doctor requested and doctor approved. If the new or unusual treatment is not in the Government mandated health insurance package, you don’t get coverage for it whether it is approved by doctors and scientists or not. The new system will be quite inflexible, slow moving, bureaucratic, and financially conservative due to the overall economic context.

Also, insurance companies can still deny payments and completely rescind policies if they declare fraud. Unlike before when whatever the insurance company said was automatically worshipped as gospel and dutifully obeyed by every governmental and judicial official, the companies may now have to "prove" fraud at a hearing IF the consumer actively contests the fraud. But with huge staffs of extremely high paid attorneys, the insurance companies will be able to prevail in most hearings when they decide to kick someone off the policy they don’t want to pay on by declaring fraud.

The concept of fraud, which is still alive and will with Obama Care, is vague and wide ranging enough to allow for a lot of successful attacks on consumers by the insurance companies. (And no, there is nothing you can do to eliminate the chance that your insurance company will falsely declare something you filed was fraudulent. Along with the huge staffs of highly paid shark type attorneys, they have plenty of legal tricks up their sleeve with which they can successfully accuse anyone of fraud.)

As I have said before, all these new laws do is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. The system will eventually go to the bottom of the briny blue, but in the meantime, some people will enjoy a better position on the deck than they have now. In particular, here are some who will be helped:

--Higher income people who know how to "do health insurance" and have a big enough and dependable enough income to back up those skills and make all the right payments at all the right times will be helped by Obama Care.

--Those who have been hammered by the “donut hole” will be better off in about ten years when it is finally gone (assuming no repeal).

--Those who simply can not get health insurance under the status quo but have enough resources to pay for premiums, deductibles, co pays, uncovered items, prescription drugs, dental care, and vision care in full and on time year after year after year. These would be fairly rich people by definition and it is no surprise that the right of center Democrats are strongly behind them.

Here are some of the groups of people who are harmed:

--Those who are ignorant about the many complexities and consumer traps of private, for profit health insurance. Such people will still be subject to disasters caused by such things as lapsed coverage due to missing premium payments, for example, interrupted health care, incomplete health care, and inadequate health care.

--Lower income people in general, especially those between 133% and 250% of the federal poverty line. Those with less than 133% will get Medicaid, but actually getting quality treatment with Medicaid (especially in a quasi depression when states are completely broke) will be at best a very dicey proposition.

--Some people who would have declared one or more bankruptcies pre Obama Care will now never have to declare bankruptcy. But lower income people (mostly among those with incomes less than 500% of poverty) have been often avoiding medical bankruptcy by not attempting the impossible (for them) task of feeding the private health system beast year after year, but now they will be induced to feed that ever growing beast, and numerous bankruptcies among them will inevitably follow. In other words, medical bankruptcy is moving down the income scale. Going forward, the people filing medical bankruptcy will be lower income and will perhaps have a smaller gap between assets and liabilities than the prior group of bankrupts. This is obviously a key way in which Obama Care does nothing but rearrange those Titanic deck chairs.

--Those who become unemployed due to a bankruptcy filing. Many professions and employers become very negatively disposed to an employee who has filed bankruptcy in the US, and they start looking for pretenses to get rid of said employee.

--There will be a good number of people who get so totally carried away by "their responsibilities" under Obama Care that they will end up homeless when they would never have been homeless under the status quo.

--Medicare Advantage enrollees, since that program has been heavily cut.

--Existing Medicaid beneficiaries, since the demand for service among the influx of new Medicaid people will be much in excess of new resources for the program.

--Small businesses, especially those with roughly 50-250 employees, who operate with their heads just above the waterline financially speaking.

--Employees of those small businesses who are fired so that those small businesses can offset the new health insurance mandate they must take on.

--I don't have enough CD space for more who are harmed so I'll add to this later.

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