>> We can expect that an American single-payer system would increase American taxes, but that increase would be more than offset by the elimination of punitive health insurance premiums. Furthermore, medical bills would decrease because there would be considerably less infrastructure to support. A single-payer system is simply much leaner than what we have right now. More than 30-40 percent of medical costs and premiums go to cover an insurance company's overhead plus profit. Clearly health care consumers would realize substantial savings with a single-payer system.  <<

Why do Republicans rage and rant against the public option?

Because they fear it won't work?

No.  Because they KNOW IT WILL.

KR: You're counting your chickens again Jon...the CopOut Public Option which was injected into the Senate Bill without any consultation by the other Senators will not get 60 votes.

Your claim that Reid wasn't consulting with the other Senators is pure right wing Republican propaganda lies and hysteria.

Nothing is a done deal without the final vote.

But, there's a good chance, as I said, that health care with the public option will pass, with the opt out provision.

KR: Senators are expected to vote on something they don't understand and haven't debated?  Fat chance.

Republicans made it a measure of party loyality and good Republicanism to do just that, especially in the Bush league years.

And, fact is, there will be CBO analysis of this variation of the public option and health care, to go along with previous analysis, available to Senators before the vote.

KR: Besides, the cop out is a bad idea...everyone, cop out or NOT, will still be taxed for the UNinsured, the government subsidies and the freeloaders who opt into the Government Welfare Health Care Plan but can't afford to pay

Says you.  But, you're mostly blowing smoke.  The "public option" is just one of many other, private, options that state residents would have to choose from.  Medicare and Medicade wouldn't change.  How states deal with uninsured would be largely a state decision. 

In good Republican states they'd be allowed to implement, "let them die and get it over with" policies so beloved of the GOP.

The opt-out provision of the public option is federalism incarnate. 

If you believed in your right wing propaganda, people in opt out states would be so much wealthier with purely private insurance companies, that there would be negligable, and probably a net benefit to them, in the area of taxes.

So, like I said....you hate the public option not because it's a disaster that would fail and fall on its own accord.

You hate it because you know it will work...

MH:  Well, it's likely moot. Joe Lieberman says he'll support a filibuster if the public option stays in the measure.

Moot is not always moot.  You're right that without Lieberman, no final bill from the Senate will contain a public option, opt out or not.

However, that's not the key vote.

The key vote is one that Lieberman will give, which is the vote on clouture to begin the debate.

"I do want to make clear, because at least one publication got this wrong," he said. "What I said this morning and what I've said to Senator Reid is that I'm inclined to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed to a debate on health care reform, because I believe we need to have a debate on health care reform and I hope to be in a position to vote yes on health care reform. But, I've also said that if the current proposal remains as it is unamended, before the final vote on the floor, that I will not vote for cloture."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/lieberman-willing-to-sink_n_335748.html

That gets the bill on the floor to a final vote. And, once the final bill fails to pass, an amendment will allow a non-public option bill to be passed by the Senate with Lieberman voting for it, and the matter will go to reconciliation.  Lieberman will not have po'd the Democrats so much that they will remove his HS chairmanship next Congress.  Although, lots will be plenty po'd at him....

MH: Olympia Snowe, the only Republican who voted for the Finance Committee version says she'll vote against it if it contains the public option,

Yep.  And, I bet she'll vote against it once the public option is stripped off.

MH: Of course, over in the House they've renamed it variously as the consumer option and the competitive option, because Madame Pelosi says it might be more attractive to skeptics if it's not called the government option.

It's Speaker Pelosi.  She's addressed as "Madame Speaker."  In the case of a Republican Speaker like Newt Gingrinch, the proper address is "That Bum." :-)

And, it doesn't matter what it's named...........it's what it does when they go into reconciliation that counts.....and what it does when it comes out.

NOTHING in the way of health care reform will get Republican support.

Nothing but the status quo will do for Republican partisanship.

This would be true if Snowe actually did vote for a health care bill..........one Republican does not make a bipartisan measure.

But, she won't.  Her last vote was pure eyewash.  She will toe the line and reconciliation will occur. 

Of course, there could be a lot of gutting in the Senate bill before reconciliation.........

But, Reid is hauling boulders to the top of mountains to try and work deals with Republicans and let the process work without reconciliation........mostly to let the Republicans paint themselves into the corner of obstructionism......."do nothing" nogoodnicks....

DT: Cloture takes a lot more votes than passage. Cloture takes 60. Passage takes 51. If neither Liberman or  Snow vote for the bill it still will likely have a majority.

Very true.  As I understand it, there are two clouture votes.  The first, which Lieberman will vote yes on, is to end debate on bringing the bill to the floor of the Senate.  The second, will be to end debate on the substance of the bill itself, calling the question and producing the yes /no vote on the bill.  Lieberman says he'll vote no on that one.  So, they'll amend the bill to take out the public option, then Lieberman will vote yes on clouture, and the bill will get the yes vote sending it to reconciliation.  Right this time? :-)

I don't think Democrats really care if there's a public option. If they get the changes they want, costs will rocket up so fast they'll be able to bring in a public option (read: means of rationing care) later

Yep. And by doing this the ball will start rolling for the real goal down the road--no more private insurnace companies.