A “major PR operation” would probably not be possible given the active hostility of most major media outlets.

Actually, the Repubs would be mimicking the Democrats’ behavior while they were out of power, and unlike the House, which rushed through the trillion dollar earmark-loaded bills recently with no committee hearings and subsequent silly mistakes [approval of the AIG bonuses was actually inside the stimulus "package" bill, but was overlooked at the 12-hour rush of a thousand-page bill through the voting process], the Senate has time-honored procedures and a much more federalist outlook, and old Sen. Byrd of W.Va. will honor the rights of Repubs even if scalawags like Shumer and Boxer do not.

The media is deathly quiet about Sen. Feinstein’s husband’s garnering a huge part of an FDIC package even though Dianne has no committee seats on fiscal or appropriations committees. Strange, as the $25 billion in the FDIC bill is large even by corrupt Democrat standards. Murtha continues his pranks after barely missing getting busted in 1980 in Abscam. Dodd is shameless, but is vulnerable in CT because of his corruption, as is Reid in NV. Jason may be counting too much on the “active hostility” if things continue to lurch along without the Chosen Won’s miraculous gifts appearing deus ex machina.

I don’t really care about what is tactical/strategical for whom – I just think it should be debated what makes sense and what does not.

I think health care reform is equivalent to global warming in the sense that waiting is bad but the point of no return isn’t manifested in a direct, concretely threatening way that legitimizes haste at the expense of a finely tuned solution. You can’t ask for perfection given the time limit, yet it is foolhardy on the political, fiscal and moral level to impose a sweeping solution that isn’t thought-out properly.

Many feel as if republicans didn’t really use their ability to give input (and demand concessions by refusing to vote) in a constructive manner last time, and don’t expect them to act reasonably if the vote limit is set to 60 – thus delaying health care reform without spending the time on making the debate or the reform bill better. I don’t really know. Their behavior hasn’t been completely reasonable and they haven’t really presented detailed options to what they were opposed to, but considering the (insert appropriate adjective) size of the bail-outs/stimulus a part of that can be forgiven.

I just think that the public option idea sounds dandy in the sense that it allows the people to vote with their feet and then have said voting actually be reflected in the system. Obama has also said he is aware of the concerns from private insurers regarding the balances being stacked against them from the get-go. That’s a point that can be reasonably debated.

Once again, the main obstacle is that some on the left and some on the right have turned a matter into an issue.

garland;
“but they lose all credibility with me” C’mon now, be honest, they have no credibility with you.

I agree with CStanley above, but also must say that the Republicans are having a lot of their recuperative efforts being done by the Democrats. The ham-fisted approach towards a leftist agenda is not what many Democrats voted for last November. Obviously, “Change you can believe in” is quite subjective.

However, the highlights so far include a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the middle (SCHIP), the fruitless and slavish efforts to ease the pain of useless bankers, the Orwellian “Cap and Trade” debacle, amnesty reform, and healthcare “reform.”

They are ALL being badly managed, and even if put in place the American people are going to increasingly resent the assumption of power by government into the tiniest fissures of their private lives.

The Republicans need to learn to be Republicans again, and not the party of George W. Bush, who was a disaster for them.

If Republicans in general and the political party in particular cared about frugal government spending Ron Paul would have been the nominee rather than being lucky to get 2% of the vote in the primaries.

With all the spending that went on under Bush I don’t think anyone takes Republicans seriously anymore when they start advocating fiscal conservatism and opposing spending.

Health care has been a constant worry to my family, since I got laid off from my job. I now realize that Insurance companies are run by a bunch of Automatons, who have no conscious or thought for human beings. Even now the battle to survive the Health care morass is not for the people who pay the exorbitant fees for service, but for the stockholders and elitists who run the for-profit business machine. Have you ever been denied drugs, because it was too expensive. Where insurance companies have ignored doctors prescriptions. Who have lied to you in some context or other, so they can benefit their own bottom line. Money!

Before I didn’t understand what Universal health care–or a single payer system was? But now I am in total in agreement with its principles? Wellbeing should be for every legal American, no matter the circumstances?

The Single payer method is a huge reservoir of money, hopefully minus the middleman, who extracts his pound of flesh from the insured? As I see it, we don’t need insurance companies anymore, nor billing businesses and an enormous amount of companies who are intermediates. We need the US federal government to run the whole matrix like in Europe. It will be a direct line to the health care providers, eye and dental, care, hospitals and specialists. We also need politicians who are honest and don’t have a too-close a relationship with corporate America, Insurance companies, drug companies, and the special interest lobby?

THE PEOPLE can do this? They can fight for the Single payer system? Universal health care cannot be any worse than medical services already have, with sick people being denied assistance and medicine. Americans pay more for their pharmaceuticals, than the majority if not all nations around the world. Hundreds of sick people having to wait for unrealistic hours, in overcrowded hospitals including senior citizens to be seen. This is very wrong, although the wealthy individuals will disagree, because they always have the money to see a physician? Now that Democrats have made it a mandatory issue, we should contact them and demand the Single payer system and not listen to the critics, who always have something to gain. In the next few months we are going to get bombarded, with millions of dollars in Health insurance ads, determined to disintegrate any earthly chance at all? Americans must receive decent health care–without the worry of big premiums and co-pays. With Universal health care–it is not FREE–it’s just you pay the government through extra taxes as in civilized foreign countries? Under Republican administration tied mostly to the Insurance industry, you will never see the chance. In UHC everybody pays into the system to receive decent medical care benefits.