A proposed single-payer system, operating to promote health instead of profits, was the first thing to go.

A public option was the compromise. Now that's gone too.

The compromise to _that_ was an earlier Medicare buy-in. That's gone, in order to try and pry a vote out of Lieberman.

What else is gone now? How about eased restrictions on importing drugs, in order to prevent pharmaceutical price gouging.

How about eliminating annual coverage caps? Nope.

Eliminating lifetime caps? Nope.

Based on everything they're taking out, I'm having trouble determining what actually IS in the bill.

Besides mandating the purchase private health insurance, that is. That's right. The plan is to force everyone to buy crappy insurance. As a bleeding-heart liberal, I'm afraid that I'm finally in agreement with the teabaggers that this bill is worse than nothing.

This bill is far worse than nothing at this point. Especially in light of the fact that more people die in the US every year from mainstream medical care mishaps than for any other reason. Until we fix the underlying causes for this, a health care bill is totally pointless.

Dr Dean said more than "kill the bill". he suggested they use the House bill and go thru reconciliation, passing the good elements in smaller bills. he thinks a new Congress can do this better in 2 years -- with that much more time for progressive activists to educate, mobilize, and more Americans to realize how badly a few Senators (as Dean said several times) beholden to the insurance companies destroyed this round of reform. the silver lining is that as bad as the bill is, it is a starting point we can build on. but it's now gotten bad enough that, unless we some big improvements (which Joe won't allow), the Doctor's prescription is right.