IT'S TIME FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

If you're going to do that, 3% overhead is too high, overhead should be zero - you can get a machine to do it automatically. The sheer dishonesty in this debate is staggering.

Nancy Pelosi: No Way Health Care Bill Passes House Without A Public Option
Brian Beutler | August 20, 2009, 5:51PM

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows how to twist arms, and some on the left worry that she might twist liberal arms to pass a health care bill without a public option. But apparently that's beyond her power.

"There is no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option," she said to a crowd in California, noting that regional health care co-ops won't get the job done. "If they want to have [co-ops] for their state, perhaps that could be included in the legislation. But it is not a substitute for a public option."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has agreed to a provision that would allow states to erect co-ops in addition to the public option. But a large progressive bloc insists that the overall bill must contain a public option or it won't pass.

Pelosi appears to be putting the White House and Senate on notice--there must be a public option, or there won't be health care reform for a very long time. "Let me just be very clear," she said. "If we don't pass this bill with all the comprehensive aspects of it now, I don't know when we'll have a chance to do it."

The poll: 55% expect the overhaul will give coverage to illegal immigrants; 34% don't. The facts: The proposals now being negotiated do not provide coverage for illegal immigrants.

Did you ever say one word about Bush and Cheney extensively using Halliburton, even as Cheney owned millions of dollars in their stock? Once?

Quote:

The poll: 55% expect the overhaul will give coverage to illegal immigrants; 34% don't. The facts: The proposals now being negotiated do not provide coverage for illegal immigrants.

The bill I am reading does NOT exclude illegal immigrants from being covered.

Quote:

Did you ever say one word about Bush and Cheney extensively using Halliburton, even as Cheney owned millions of dollars in their stock? Once?

It wasnt needed.

Both the President AND the VP and their immediate families are required to place any stock they might own into a blind trust.
They have no control over how it it managed, nor are they allowed to ask.
All they are told is if their stocks made a profit for the year or not, for tax purposes.

More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a "choice" between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday.

A new study by SurveyUSA puts support for a public option at a robust 77 percent, one percentage point higher than where it stood in June.

But the numbers tell another story, as well.

Earlier in the week, after pollsters for NBC dropped the word "choice" from their question on a public option, they found that only 43 percent of the public were in favor of "creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies."

Opponents of the president's agenda jumped on the findings as evidence that backing for the public option was dropping. Proponents responded by arguing that NBC's tinkering with the language of the question (which it had also done in its July survey) had contributed to the drop in favorability for a public plan.

SurveyUSA's poll, which was commissioned by the progressive group MoveOn.org, a proponent of the public plan, gives credence to those critiques. While arguments about what type of language best describe the public option persist --"choice" is considered a trigger word that everyone naturally supports -- it seems clear that the framing of the provision goes a long way toward determining its popularity.

In asking its question SurveyUSA used the same exact words that NBC/Wall Street Journal had used when conducting its June 2009 survey. That one that found 76 percent approval for the public option: "In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance--extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?"

To ensure that its respondent pool was composed of people from similar demographics and political mindsets, SurveyUSA asked respondents a question pulled directly from NBC's August survey. The results were nearly identical.

Read a description of the president's health care plan, 51 percent of Survey USA respondents said they "favored" the approach, while 43 percent opposed it. In the NBC poll, 53 percent of respondents said they favored the president's plan, 43 percent said they opposed it.

I predict that Obama will sign a bill including a public option, this Fall.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I predict that Obama will sign a bill including a public option, this Fall.

Cycloptichorn

I want to memorialize this prediction for future reference. Credulity in the face of contrary facts is a hallmark of the true believer .... or fanatic, depending on your point of view.

Equivocating already ?? The truth is that, given the growing disaffection of the so-called "red dog" Democrats and the likely altered views of the Congress when it reconvenes, they probably don't have the votes. We may well be seeing a reenactment of the events of 1993-4. It appears likely that the "progressive left" has, once again, overplayed its hand.

The first law of Holes is .... "when you are in one, stop digging."

I didn't say that. Instead I merely noted the unrealism of your very firm and unambiguous prediction that the president will sign a Health care bill containing a Public option by the Fall.

You are the one making specific predictions here, not me. The equivocations, however, are noted.