they are in pure political mode now.   They don't care what's in the bill.  They've convinced themselves that they can pass a POS and then with the political win use that mandate to change it after the fact.

The reality is they won't be able to get it fixed and we'll be stuck with something that nobody likes.  

Most Americans and most smart politicians know this and that's why they are losing this battle.

Dean is right, drop this load of garbage and start over or start simpler.   Pushing through a tax hiking, Medicare cutting deficit raising load of garbage will be a bigger political liability then passing nothing at all.

Obama has sold out and we will now be run by corporate insurance and Drug cartels.

The secret drug deal he made in July with Big Pharma insures continued skyrocketing prices and profits.

Should this be law and when everyone is mired in this mess from Stupak to mandates for buying private insurance.....forget the Democrats for the next 20 years.

Obama has been deceptive and has not made good on his promises.  He has not led.

The congress of the US is held hostage by the money spent to buy their votes and the nation is helpless in the face of it.  But isn't this one of the issues Obama campaigned on?  The eradication of special interests and their lobbyists when he took office?

Those of us who were out of diapers in the '90s recall that the last President to take on insurers ended with two terms and an approval rate of around 70%. TINS is also a Californian, and, again, if he weren't handicapped by lack of knowledge would know that our new member of congress from CD10 was the giant killer who successfully took on CA insurers as state insurance commissioner... and one should be able to extrapolate success from CA, since its economy is the size of decent size European nation.

It is, though, absolutely true that insurers have more money than *od, and that is a reality we need to work with, like to automatically reject candidates who run Harry and Louse campaigns, and design legislation that undermines the ins. co. stranglehold on the market. The answer here is obviously to stick with simple legislation that has open access to public insurance as one of its legs.

McJoan has a post about how folks may be charged triple for pre-existing conditions. In addition, insurers can limit how much they pay out on an individual's policy in a year.

So, let's say you don't have insurance because you're working class and barely making ends meet, your family living paycheck to paycheck. Let's say you're 52 and have high cholesterol (according to McJoan, pre-existing conditions).

Here comes Obama. Congratulations! You're now going to have health insurance!

Insurance that will come out of your empty pockets, but hey you'll get tax credits to pay for some of it. Oh, and you'll have to pay triple what a younger, healthy person will have to pay. And, uh, don't get too sick or you'll still be bankrupted by high medical bills.

What a great deal. And if you're foolish enough to turn it down, you'll have to pay a $750 fine.