moderate republicans

The bill that Baucus passed today didn’t have a public option in it.

Let me repeat that…Baucus’ bill had NO PUBLIC OPTION in it.

Yes, there are decentralized not-for-profit co-ops, but that’s definitely not a public option as had been proposed.

First off, my takeaways about the policy in the speech…

1. You can’t be dropped because of pre-existing conditions.
   
   No surprise there, but to me this is the most important reform. Also, no more yearly or lifetime caps. For catastrophic illness, this is a must.

Listen, I truly hope that the Dems don’t use the reconciliation process to try and get the health care reform bill passed.

Why? Well, it seems if they took this path they’d have to break up the legislation in two pieces, the budget portion and the insurance reform portion.

The budget they could do via reconciliation no problem. But the insurance reforms? Well, since they don’t have anything to do with earmarking money, this couldn’t be done via reconciliation.

Here’s how the numbers break out…

• Votes approve 54/24 %
• 22% undecided
• Democrats support 81/3 %
• Independents support 50/26 %
• Republicans oppose 46/26 %
• Men approve 48/31 %

Does anybody think Sonia Sotomayor isn’t going to get confirmed?

Well, if you do, here are some reasons why you may way to rethink.