Well, at the very least, it sounds like they've cut down the unruly thing to just over 2,000 pages. Whew! To be honest, I'm a little concerned that in the end, after all the trimming, editing, and reconfiguring of the bill, low-income folks may still be getting the short-changed in some big ways. Making medicine and health care more affordable for that population should be top national priority, IMHO, but Reid hasn't convinced me that this bill will deliver that.

No plan will appease all, so I say let's get this party started. We agree that we have an ailing/sub-par/shitty system, and the Senate's bill looks like a reasonable way to extend affordable health care to far more people without breaking the bank. Screw Lieberman. Obama needs to focus on employment and economy next, so let's put this plan to work and check it off the list for now.

It's government takeover, pure and simple.

Certainly not in its present form...

While health care reform is necessary,the current Senate proposal(as well as the bill proposed by the House) will create far more problems than it will solve. For example,the public option in any form should not be part of a final solution. It will only lead to destroying the private health care industry which will be unable to compete with the government.Moreover the cost of a public option would be prohibitive. Virtually half of the trillion dollar estimated cost in the present bills will reduce medicare payments to medicare healthcare providers including doctors.This will cause many more doctors to refuse to accept medicare patients,ultimately leading to health  care rationing.

Any health care reform should cap medical malpractice awards against doctors and hospitals and cap attorney fees. This will save billions annually of the cost of health care.

Regulate the crap out of health insurance companies - legislate their revenue from this source and require that all persons be insured and allow no option to deny insurance - and give them deregulation of all other insurance products. If they do well with our health insurance, we'll be more likely to choose them for our other insurance needs.

This is what's really missing from this legislation - and what makes the private/public insurance cooperatives work in countries like Germany and France.

Health care reform is about more than insuring everybody. We need to cut costs at the source: Tort reform, elimination of the need of every individual practitioner to carry malpractice insurance, lessening the cost of medical school for those who show intellect, talent and commitment, reducing waste, consolidating patient data, and changing the mind-set of individuals who see a career in medicine as a winning lottery ticket.

Let's do that and add some serious change in the American food industry - the source of about 80% of our health problems - and we'll all be a whole lot healthier and happier.