Give it time. I'm willing to bet the man won't be re-elected.

I'll take that bet.

2012 is ages away. I think if the economy is satisfactory, people will vote their wallets. And I think the probability of the economy continuing in its present slump until then is low.

Also, there isn't an obvious challenger among the present crop of politicians (other than perhaps Romney), though there's still some time for more contenders to emerge.

By then, they'll have some explaining to do about how those "death panels" failed to materialize

Not in the slightest. Compared to the last 8 years of secrecy, ineptitude, and illegality, he and his administration continues to be a welcome breath of fresh air and intelligence. It will take a lot of effort to undo the massive damage done by Bush and a sycophantic Republican Congress.


Oh think for yourself a bit. Somehow when they were republicans, they were called Presidential Advisers. They have no real power other than to make recommendations to the President. 8 of them happen to already be in positions that do require Senate confirmation. Another two haven't even started their job yet, since their confirmations have been held up by Senate republicans. Even your beloved Fox right-wing propaganda machine News has debunked the notion of czars with unchecked power. You know, if you keep regurgitating misinformation from ignorant people like Drudge, Hannity, Limbo, and Beck, you start to appear just as ignorant.

Unpossible. If you do that, they stop sending you your copy of the Talking Points Memo.

Come to think of it, perhaps kodos is our best chance for truly "universal" health care.

Kodos would have more than balanced the budget, began national debt reduction, eliminated crime, corruption, poverty, illegal immigration and waste, preserved our environment, restored respect for our nation, withdrew US armed forces from foreign locations, negotiated an end to all international conflicts, spread democracy throughout the globe, insured a superb education for all and made this nation robustly healthy.

In that case....

All hail our alien overloards!

(Though I suspect if Obama had "negotiated an end to all international conflicts," some would criticize him for the subsequent devastating job losses in the weapons manufacturing industry.)

First, it's not as if 40 million people are going completely without care. They are going to the ER, which may be the most inefficient way to receive care.

Second, I don't know what the process of adding people to insurance rolls will be, but I'm skeptical that it will happen overnight. Plus there is no single bill at the moment, so it's hard to talk about implementation before there is some kind of agreed-upon text. To the extent that there is text, Congressman Tim Bishop's [NY-01] website says that the provisions of House Bill 3200 would not go into effect until 2013.

Most members of Congress (though not all) are not ignorant regarding the need to provide time for changes to a large, bulky, administrative-laden system. Instead of assuming that huge numbers of people will suddenly be thrust into an unprepared system, we should look at what the legislation (when/if it happens) actually says and have a discussion on that basis.