If you are not insured and get pregnant, I shouldn't have to pay for it.

Drawing the line there denies quality prenatal care to pregnant women and we get more children with disabilities and educational problems that dog them throughout their lives. Penny wise, pound foolish.

It's a tough nut to crack. I'm still committed to adding it, but the code isn't working right.

I am not paying for boob jobs, except for white women in their 40s who reside in North Florida, and then only for augmentation and not reduction.

I will tell you that it would be limited to people with genetic conditions, people who were "born that way", or developed medical problems through no fault of their own. I am not paying for AIDS patients, gangland shootings, prenatal services, abortions, treatment for illnesses related to obesity, smoking, drug use, etc. I am also not paying for anyone that chose to take the extra money in their pay check rather than pay for the insurance "because they are healthy now". I am not paying for illegal aliens or anyone that tests positive for the presence of drugs.

You have a promising career ahead of you as a health insurance claims processor.

Larry: Is it true that you are so selfish you drive on interstate highways?

The memo went out for every Republican to use the phrases "government takeover of our health care" and "Speaker Pelosi's bill."

Why is it My fault because of bad behaviors / choices of people who currently find themselves uninsured?

You think the uninsured all got that way because of choices they made? Sheesh.

It boggles my mind how proponents of big government fool themselves into thinking good intentions displace unintended consequences.

Medicare is big government. Social Security is big government. The interstate highway system is big government. The military is big government. And on and on.

Are folks watching this dog and pony show on c-span?

I'm listening to it. Excruciating. Just vote already dammit.

TaoWarrior: I don't know whether this bill is the best bill. I would have supported *any* bill that eliminated pre-existing conditions and made universal health care attainable. I would have supported a Republican bill that made catastrophic care universal and made people pay for everything else out of pocket.

All I want is health coverage I can count on forever.

What I know today is that the Democrats have put forward a solution and spent the political capital necessary to get it passed.

The Republicans spent eight years under Bush doing nothing about this. Even though he was the most big-spending president they've ever had, they couldn't make health insurance reform a priority. The only health care they gave a crap about was Terri Schiavo's.

So here we are, and I find myself reaching for the Democratic bill for a simple reason: Americans are drowning in medical debt. The Democrats are the party that's extending a life preserver.

Explains a lot about El Flushbo, though, doesn't it?

So you have no problem with me favoring war if I own defense contractor stocks? What about favoring high oil prices and oil subsidies if I own oil stocks. (There are millions of us in those boats.) Do you still support your own logic?

I do. Your examples are weak. No one who owns oil stocks would be under any illusions that millions of people would benefit from oil subsidies.

Wanting universal health coverage for yourself does not make you selfish. I'm sure Larry, like me, would be glad to buy private insurance if it was available, affordable and would never drop us.

I don't know about Cheney, but Rush was too young to serve in Vietnam, so Kos wouldn't have that angle.

So are you changing your position to be that there are MILLIONS of self employed people trying to get insurance for their families? I thought you were concerned about MILLIONS of people that had lost their jobs and could not get insurance. Once you set the goal posts, you have to leave them there.

I'm not changing my position at all. I am in favor of any system that kills pre-existing conditions and enables all Americans to be assured of health insurance coverage, either through private companies or government run care. It will be less expensive in the long run than what we have at present.

The current system is killing entrepreneurship in this country. If we had a guarantee of universal health care, how many Americans could leave jobs they hate and start their own companies? It would fuel an entrepreneurial boom that would rival the birth of Silicon Valley.

I guess the motto of the democrat party is please, for the love of God, someone go work for yours so we can take it from you.

No, it's that there are some things we must do together because we cannot do them alone, and government is often the best way to do them. Interstate Highway System, Social Security, Medicare, taking Europe back from the Nazis, taking Asia back from the Japanese, and on and on. Rugged individualism is great, but heaven help any rugged individual who is self-employed and trying to get health insurance for his or her family.

On most issues, Larry is well thought out and tends to me motivated by a deep sense of what he believes is right. On health care it is because HE has been turned down by insurance carriers. (He has MANY posts to that affect.)

So what? He tried to get private insurance under the existing system, they told him to fuck off, so he's turned to his government to get coverage. There's absolutely nothing wrong with favoring a government program that will benefit you personally along with millions of other people like you.

Both my wife and I have pre-existing conditions. If someone gets a job with benefits, the health insurance for that job is REQUIRED to take them. Additionally, when someone loses their job, they have the option of paying for the benefits out of their own pocket for a period of one year.

And after that, what? Your choices are terrible when that year runs out.

If you find a job and either you or your spouse has expensive health care needs, many businesses will find their premiums jacked up to the hilt. It's a way to pressure employers to cut costs by cutting those expensive employees.

The current system had its chance, and it failed. Private insurers only want to insure young healthy people.

I guess the motto of the democrat party is please, for the love of God, someone go work for yours so we can take it from you.

No, it's that there are some things we must do together because we cannot do them alone, and government is often the best way to do them. Interstate Highway System, Social Security, Medicare, taking Europe back from the Nazis, taking Asia back from the Japanese, and on and on. Rugged individualism is great, but heaven help any rugged individual who is self-employed and trying to get health insurance for his or her family.

Because everyone forgot until just now when he showered us with his wisdom.

Bush made statements like this several times to protect Muslim-Americans from persecution, including in the days after 9/11. It's not something that ought to be dismissed.

He is one of the people standing in line demanding that his fellow citizens pay for his health care. He is not one bit ashamed to stick his hand into your pocket or mine to take our money to do it either.

The federal government's money is his money too, A Citizen. Your rhetoric singling him out as selfish is ridiculous. I can't imagine you'd call your grandmother a thief for collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.

I wish he had to look each person in the eye that gets fired from their current jobs because the company can't afford to keep them and tell them that he need that money so he could have health care.

How many people over the last five years have lost their jobs, lost their health coverage and been unable to get a replacement because of "pre-existing conditions" or other excuses the insurers use to exclude millions of people? Do they matter to you?

I reserve the balance of my time to weep tears of joy if this bill passes.

With a nation careening towards bankruptcy, it's going to be interesting to see how that turns out. They're all Ponzi Schemes.

If we can afford an elective war in the Middle East for six years (and counting), maybe we can afford to bring universal health care to our own citizens -- something that may be cheaper in the long run than the existing mess.

Lord knows, if President Bush had decided that we needed to start a third war and borrow $1 trillion to finance it, the Republicans and a lot of Democrats would have been right on board.

Getting a bill through the Senate is a totally different matter though...

True, but Reid's not stupid either. He's got the votes too, or else we don't get here.

Even if all this bill did was make it impossible for Americans to become uninsurable, it would save millions of lives and be as popular over time as Social Security and Medicare. It seems like incredibly bad politics, to me, for Republicans to stand in opposition to that.

I believe the last sitting Senator to go from the Senate to the White House was John F Kennedy.

Yup. Obama was the first since 1960.

This bill will pass. There's no way it would've hit the floor if Pelosi didn't have the votes.

Thank Allen Keyes for the skyrocket that was Barak Obama's political ascendency.

As Crisp said, Alan Keyes was the second stroke of luck in Obama's Senate bid. The first was the fact that Republican candidate Jack Ryan's wife was so unattractive to him that he needed the outside titillation of taking her to group sex clubs.

But who can blame him? Take a look at that hideous creature he married: