Should progressive members of the House support or block a health care bill with the above features?

this should be re-worded to make it more representative of the effects..'do you want to have (real) competition against 'for profit insurers' or not, or would you choose to give the 'for -profit' insurance companies total market control ?

Are we really dumb enough to accept having to buy insurance as a requirement under the aegis of what some call health care reform. Without a public option that actually has what Jane included this bill has no worth and we might want to buy stock in the company that produces K Y jelly as it is efficacious for what is being done to all of us.

The healthcare reform debate is just the symptomatic tip of the iceberg. The republicans will try to block any real change that improves the lot of poor and working-class americans. Obama and the congressional dems know this, and it's time to stop trying to placate them and trying to lure them into voting for watered down legislation that will leave intact the obscene profits made off of sickness and ageing here.

No more "reaching out"; no more bi-partisanship. Take the damn vote, and if we lose, then we lose, and let the people who didn't take advantage of this last, best, opportunity to make some meaningful changes in healthcare pay the consequences.

“Put a bill out there, make them filibuster it, make them be what they are, the party of no,” Carville said. “Let them kill it. Let them kill it with the interest group money, then run against them. That’s what we ought to do.” James Carville

re Carville quote posted by WordBloom (above) .... I rarely agree with Carville, but on this he is absolutely, spot-on correct.

So long as for-profit health isurance companies control the purse-strings, the system will remain in crisis mode, and the American people will be stuck in health care hell.

While I agree that everyone should be in the system, a mandate without a STRONG public plan will no doubt force us to buy a defective product that many of us will not be able to afford to use. If that happens, it will be our patriotic duty to strike, resist and revolt.

Wellpoint sent an email out today to all its customers encouraging them to call their legislatiors because none of the health care bills in committee are to use their words, "sustainable" and "responsible" health care reform. They went on to say that the current bills will result in diminished services and higher premiums for those who are insured through private insurers.

I find it both ironic and insulting that they would have the balls to send this out to their consumers who pay as much for health care as they do a mortgage payment and think that we are so stupid as to buy their load of crap.

What will not be "sustainable" if we have an a public plan option will be their profits. They will no longer set the standard for who is allowed to be insured due to wealth or health.

Anything less than a public plan option will keep the for profit insurance companies in the drivers seat.

We need Obama to find his balls and get out in front of this thing NOW. Its the least he can do for all of us that stood behind him and believed in CHANGE. Senator Kennedy certainly did and it is time for Obama to draw his line in the sand and make this happen.