But the comparison isn’t pat. Paul Krugman says go with the bill, which should be evidence enough that principle can dictate a yes vote.

And Iraq is hard to get out of, once you’re in. So, I expect, will universal health care once it is mandated. We have to control costs either way. If we stick with the system we got, we’ll go broke quicker with a hard climb back up. This bill has some important seed money for cost reform, and increasingly we know how the medical billing of the future will look like based on successful hospital models that we already see working in America. Healthy and robust salaries for doctors, with bonuses for good health results, will lead the way. The exchange will provide a good regulatory bottleneck for national plans. These are good tools that can be improved upon.

I do love the songs of despair I hear of late. This “success” is still a stinging setback. The majority has been thwarted. The votes already exist for this bill. But the radical anti-health care reform forces and the corporatist hacks colluded and a real solution was prevented.

The bill collapsing and health care reform being put off for another decade (the only thing that would happen if we listened to Dean) is simply not an acceptable course of action. It’s simply giving up. This is the bill that is possible right now, for disgraceful reasons. But if it loses, it won’t be a victory of our principles, it will be a defeat of them. A loss would condemn the entire effort, right down to the belief that all Americans should be covered.

We need to pass it with open and flagrant begrudging over what was lost. We need to step forward and claim a victory for universal health care. Republicans will be forced to move to the left on the issue to survive politically, much like in Europe.

That is vitally important. Universal health care shouldn’t be controversial. The sooner this reform effort can make UHC the status quo, the better.

Did you read anything before you started trolling, Yorky?

Stop asking people to m ake your arguments for you. That’s not how this game works.

Hey, he’s praising, he can defend himself.

Name 100 specifics that will make things worse! Oh snap!!

Stop asking people to m ake your arguments for you. That’s not how this game works.

I think the answer to both is now no.

Ian Welsh posted a strong reply to Nate Silver here.

Nate Silver spells things out. It is an incomplete solution, but one that solves many problems. It is, remarkably, more fiscally conservative than anything we got from the years of GOP rule that put us in this deficit hole. If we can simply agree to keep future efforts deficit neutral or reductive, we’ll be able to make real strides forward.

By jove, though, I wish I could simply see a line on my tax bill that says “National Health Care tax” and be covered anywhere at any time. I wish that medical debt was a national horror long extinguished.

Of course, without the ability to negotiate prices, at the insistence of “fiscal conservatives,” we’ll see prices climb. Cue “Remember when we said we should be able to negotiate prices? Care for another 14% increase in cost?”

Massachusetts has dropped the number of uninsured to under 3%. I really encourage all manner of debate and innovation as long as it is understood that our systems must seek to provide universal health care. I believe our problems will be less horrendous and easier to tackle than if we let our current system continue its downward spiral.

And again, we’ll be able to say, “Um, how’s that Republican-style health care reform working for you? Yeah, see, we had this idea, about a public option, you may have heard of it. CBO said it would cut costs, but that wasn’t good enough for Republicans who gave us Medicare Part D with deficit spending. Maybe try listening to us this time?”

The links are good, and provide a _little_ hope. But not much. Without a reasonable overall strategy, it’s just throwing money at the problem, not offering a structure under which we can solve it.

So, you can’t name one then. Pass that Bill!!! Well, what’s in it? I don’t know.