The 10 previous times Obama has rope-a-doped his opponent, people thought he had caved, too

Look, I'm not trying to be cheerful for cheerfulness's sake, here. I'm just saying this guy has a way of looking like he's getting beaten when he's actually setting up for an uppercut.

Now, if we come out of here with a bill where the actual providers of insurance are still for-profit but are so tightly regulated that they essentially have to behave like public providers, ie
* no denial for pre-existing conditions
* no rescissions
* statutory caps on premiums and OOP expenses, with no alterations except for age, family size, and tobacco use
* an employer mandate

Then this will essentially be the plan that those of us old enough to remember were fighting strenuously for in 1994, and it will peel off some Republican support. That may not matter to a lot of people here but it also does matter to a lot of us. Both tactically and morally I and a lot of other people thinks the nation's health care system needs to be something that most of the country more or less agrees on, at least in principle.

I still want the public option, but I don't think it's all or nothing. Something is better than nothing, and gets us closer to what we want.

That said, I really, really want a public option, and hope it happens.

:eyes:

DOMA?

etc.

would give him credit and retract their "sellout" accusations made while the back-and-forth of the legislative process was underway.

I believe he really wants a public option and has proven to be quite politically astute in the past. He has been slamming the big insurance companies and their greed consistently. During the August recess he has not been drawing lines in the sand and issuing ultimatums that many of us would like to see. We'll see in September when congress reconvenes whether he has been "playing chess" and has his pieces ready for the end game or if he gets outwitted by big insurance and the repubs.

...but he has shown himself capable of accomplishing more than I believe anyone else could. I think his contribution will eventually be seen as having moved us forward.

One need only look to the fact that he won a grueling primary over a significantly more experienced, better funded, tough opponent whom was widely considered to be the presumptive nominee and the GE despite being African-American and having to deal with, as all recent Democratic nominees have, a vast right-ward tilted corporate media apparatus that gave every significant advantage (as they have in all recent elections) to the Republican ticket and helped the Republicans smear Obama relentlessly and stoke up their base. I can recall that many of us here at DU were constantly criticizing Obama for not fighting back hard enough, not being tough enough, questioning his strategy at nearly every turn- yet, what were we left with on election night? A 300+ EV count and a 6+ PV blowout victory!
:woohoo:
It sure sounds like he must have been doing SOMETHING right to not only win but win by a significant margin! It was obviously an unusually bad year for the Republicans but it was NOWHERE near a close election.


Obama may not be perfect (who is?) but I haven't seen where he has let the Republicans get the best of him yet and, frankly, why should we be worried that they will now? He may not be as progressive as some people might want him to be but so far he's done pretty much what he said he would do during the campaign and I haven't really seen where the Republicans have "bent" him to their will, although they ARE furiously trying to "break" him. We know THAT much. However, from what we have seen of Obama so far, it would be rather uncharacteristic IMHO for Obama to simply fold like a "cheap suit" in the face of Republican opposition to his agenda and, frankly, I don't think he's going to let go of the PO as easily as some people around here seem to think.

The Netherlands has mandated private insurance, but all ages pay at the same rate.

A caps on premiums that still allows private insurers to rip off 11% of your income is NOT accetptable, especially when they can already take $10,000 from a family of two in copays and deductibles.