Reply #11: The unrecs are people who don't care what kind of health care we have

[bfarq]

just as long as the Democrats ram it up the Republicans' butts.

That isn't the point. The point is to get a much better deal for the American people. I wish the Republicans shared that goal, but their actions call that into question.

However, the Republicans are right when they say this bill doesn't address the cost of health care. (From there, they go on to say everything would be just dandy if we put the lawyers out of business, which is nonsense.)

The sad truth is that the only way for us to not miss this historic opportunity to get a fundamentally better deal for Americans -- the same deal that all other developed countries get -- is to oppose this bill.

We cannot pass the Senate bill. That does absolutely noting to address these problems. It makes them worse and it guarantees that we won't get another chance to do something for at least 12 years.

But if the conference were to add elements that do address these problems, you run into Lieberman, Baucus and the others who think the status quo is dandy.

So the way forward is to stop this bill -- not to kill it permanently, but to break it into pieces that can pass the Senate under reconciliation. That might take a couple of extra months, but that's well worth the time because the current bill doesn't deliver much until after 2014.

There is a 3rd way. Bu presenting this reconciliation path as a viable alternative, that forces Lieberman and the others to back off their hard line with the current bill because a compromise on this bill is better than what they would get under reconciliation.