It's Clear that Republicans Won't Support Healthcare Reform AT ALL

Plain and simple, if there were no Public Option and the bill was reduced to reforming insurance to:

1. No more preexisting conditions
2. No more lifetime maximums
3. Price controlled
4. Partially subsidized premiums for the poor

They still wouldn't vote for it.

They wouldn't vote if the bill was reduced to item 1.

They are going to use this issue as a political weapon to fire up their base. Plain and simple. Instead of saving American lives (more than 18,000 Americans dying a year because they can't afford healthcare) and they just want to beat Democrats and Obama, they are going to fight tooth and nail until any sort of reform, even the basic reform, is killed.

And they are going to use fear, force and violence to do it.

It's time to fight back. It's time to ram a truly progressive bill down their throat and destroy them politically. They've made themselves politically irrelevant and they've betrayed their own constituents for the sake of the multi-billion dollar profiteering insurance companies. It's time to show them what a Democratic majority can really do. And if the blue dogs don't want to get in line, then they can be replaced as well.

I agree, and thats why I find myself with little patience for those who forever defend Obama instead of holding his feet to the fire so he does the right thing.

Screw chess, we need to start playing battleship.

We've got majorities in House and Senate. We can push it through without them. If our own teammates jump in the way, well, we know who needs replacing in the midterms, don't we?

But, at the altar of bipartisanship, the administration and the Congressional Dems will give us even less than we should have expected.

They are worse than useless.

With no actual language that mentions Reagan.