Today was a big day. Baucus announced his plan. Here on Kos everyone hates it. The rec list is up in arms, but stop for a second and think about it. This worst case bill is an amazing reformation of the health care system and really will cover almost all American citizens and do it by taxing the upper class.
You can scream that it doesn't have a Public Option or a tight community rating band - but that would show you don't understand the personal economics of it. This plan has a hard cap on the percentage of income anyone will have to spend for health insurance. Even with the public option, everyone will hit the cap. If insurance rates double, you wont pay anymore. The government will have to pay bigger bills, which is bad, but the bills will get paid by taxes on the upper classes who can afford it and have the power to demand further reforms if this bill costs too much.
Despite your wailing, Obama's team played this beautifully. Now he is being pulled between two sides of the debate which are both perfectly fine. If the Baucus plan passes as is, folks here will scream, but then see that 95% of Americans have health insurance and that the coops are bigger than we expected and the insurance reforms have really changed our relationship with the health care system and rejoice.
If the progressive caucus is able to pull the bill a little closer to its own vision - all the better.
Now only short sightedness on the part of the left can hand the people of the US a defeat. If we continue to insist on our way or the highway and actually get our reps to vote against the bill because it doesn't have all the features we want- then the Sin is ours and every bankruptcy and premature death we cause will be the fault of our short sightedness.