Reply #5: But today media reality seems to trump real reality and the media would see such an outcome . . .

[MrModerate]

As a huuuuuge defeat for Obama. They'd effectively write off his presidency and it would be insanely hard to restart it.

The model I draw hope from is Social Security. It started out massively flawed, with big holes and gross unfairnesses, but over the years it was refined into a solid (although still imperfect) social support mechanism that serves the majority of its beneficiaries quite well.

This is the time (IMO) to get the ball rolling in the right direction (or closer to right) on health care reform -- as opposed to heading off the cliff -- and continue improvements over time.

Single payer, although logical, was determined by Dem leaders to be Too Hard. Were they right? Maybe not, but we are where we are, and I'd prefer to not wreck Obama's presidency over this issue, because there's too much else to do.

That having been said, if all we get out of this is another 40 million guaranteed customers for the insurance companies without other substantial reforms (recission, exclusion), then it *will* be a failure and Obama's presidency will crater because the center and the left will desert him.