1. They didn't sacrifice it to make nice with Republicans, they sacrificed it because there were too many Democrats in the Senate who wouldn't vote for anything with a public option.

2. This is an old bill, so the public option is coming back out. Pelosi herself said just the other day, "The public option is dead. Get over it." What they're going to do is mark it up for this Slaughter trick, which is a grossly unconstitutional way of trying to pass legislation. The Constitution specifically says that a bill must pass the House and Senate before being signed into law. The House cannot pass another piece of legislation (i.e. this reconciliation vehicle) that simply deems something to have passed when it didn't... but that's exactly what they're trying to do.

3. Who could possibly be in favor of this awful bill? If you believe that health care is a right (I personally don't see how you can possibly claim the right to someone else's labor), this bill will not make health care a right; it will make health insurance an obligation.

Sounds like a great bill. The democrats have been too yellow-bellied on this in the past.

We can claim a right to exercise a certain living standard, which includes health. And either way, no public good is bought without someone else's labor, or are you opposed to free firefighters, public education, and the like?

It's not a great bill, but it's needed and it isn't detrimental to our country like some say. You're right though, the democrats haven't had a backbone in years. I hope it passes, but I really hope they make some changes in the future.

You can certainly claim a negative right to exercise a certain standard of living, but to claim a positive right to one seems to me violently at odds with the principles on which the US is founded and will lead over time to a government without limits.

Anybody remember when they were making these kinds of statements?

http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/

I especially liked Harry Reid's comments at around 3:50.

That's the beauty of politics, though. Hate it when it's being used against you, love it when you can use it.

Nobody's taking anyone to task about it, especially since the Republicans have been just as hypocritical (since they're the ones that brought it back into the modern legislative lexicon, and now they're the ones calling it tyrrany)

@Badgenome, i agree. The whole problem with claiming a standard of living right is the question of where it ends, is it an inherent right or is it just the have-nots being whiny about how the economic system screwed them over? I contest that it is a right, but the question of where it begins or ends is definitely a foggy one, and could lead to dangerous places, but most good ideas lead to dangerous places when taken too far (like the capitalism that enriches the world daily, but also led some people to believe that they could make money by lending money to people who clearly couldn't handle it, then securitizing that for some reason and spreading their stupidity all over the market)

I think it's an inevitability that once the government is in charge of our health care, they'll slowly but surely come to be in charge of every aspect of our lives. Government always seeks to extend its reach anyway, and since freedom (or power) and responsibility go hand in hand, then by handing over responsibility to the government we're necessarily giving them the right to decide what we can and cannot do. It has always seemed profoundly illegitimate to me that any sort of recreational drug could be illegal to a person who is paying for their own health care. Meanwhile (to use an extreme example), surely a proponent of universal health care must admit that the public should not be forced to pay for this idiot's sick desire to ruin her body.

With this bill in particular, there are tons of constitutional issues. Can the federal government actually compel citizens to purchase a particular good or service? In an effort to be respectful to a particular religion, the Senate included in its bill a provision that exempts Christian Scientists from the mandate. How does that square with the First Amendment's decree that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"? But both of those may pale in comparison to the Constitutional crisis that will arise should the Democrats employ the so-called Slaughter Rule to pass this abominable thing.

That's the problem, everyone should be taken to task about it, democrats and republicans alike because inevitably the tides will shift back and forth just like they always have in American politics and the play will only get dirtier unless we put a stop to it now.

Have you read the bill...?