How can you add 40 million people to the healthcare rolls immediately (these people need coverage now! is the cry) while not adding any more nurses, doctors or hospitals in to the equation and assume the system will not have to ration care, at the very least until the system absorbs them and is brought up to speed with more personnel, is ludicrous.

Oops Alice, you forgot to use a question mark. Nevertheless, your question is a good one. An answer is given by Representative Kucinich.

It is said one should not ask how sausage or laws are made. Are you concerned about a public option? Let me share with you some insight about health care legislation which may not be good for your health.

A lesson in politics. The Kucinich Prediction: Here's what's going to happen ...

House will make a big deal about keeping/putting a public option in HR3200 because it competes with insurance companies and will keep insurance rates low.
The White House will refer to the President's speech last week where he spoke favorably of the public option.
The Senate will kill the competitive public option in favor of non-competitive "co-ops". Senate leaders like Kent Conrad have said the votes to pass a public option were never there in the Senate.
The bill will come to a House-Senate Conference Committee without the public option.
House Democrats will be told to support the conference report on the legislation to support the President.
The bill will pass, not with a "public option" but with a private mandate requiring 30 million uninsured to buy private health insurance (if one doesn't already have it). If you are broke, you may get a subsidy. If you are not broke, you will get a fine if you do not purchase insurance.
This legislative sausage will be celebrated as a new breakthrough and will be packaged as health insurance reform. However, the bill may require a Surgeon General's warning label: Your Money or Your Life!

The bill that Congress passes may pale in comparison to the bill that millions of Americans will get every month/year for having or not having private health insurance.

Those 40 million people already have access to medical care. It's claled the emergency room, and when they finally go for treatment it costs 10X what it would have if they had gotten preventative care. They don't pay the bill....we the taxpayers pay the bill at substantially higher costs. It's such a screwed up system we have right now. It benefits no one except the companies that own hospitals and the companies that make drugs.

....and doctors, lawyers, and insurance companies.

To quote a retired insurance company executive "there are way too many smart people making way too much money" for there to be any substantive change in our system.

I think most of us would agree with Kent here.

I'm almost smart enough to know what substantive means!

How could anyone have Obama remorse? What was the other option? Please, someone tell me what the Repugs would have done? Made Bush Tax cuts permanent? What the F*&% else. The Repugs have no answer but more military spending and tax cut for the wealthiest people. Please get over yourselves, you Repugs, because you have no answer just complaints.

Oh, and what happened to GM. Did they go down the toilet like Repugs wanted. No, it was saved along with 100,000s of jobs and made profitable. If GM failed this country would have been really screwed.

And, yeah, its been two years and the economy isn't that much better. But, what did you think would happen, just click the remote and it would be fixed. It took Bush 8 years to destroy our way of life. It may take 10, 20 years or more to get back to where our economy was a few years ago.

I had to give up a lot of things I didn't want to because of what has happened and If you think I don't sound happy about it your right. I'm so tired of all these complaints when no one has any answers. If the Repugs take over the House and Senate then we get what we deserve. You all really better think about your votes in the near future because unchecked capitalism ultimately destroys itself.

One last thing, what happened to our economy after Bush I? Anyone want to answer that? I will, because I graduated from college in 92. We had a recession? :-O Holy crap, you mean we had a recession after Bush I and after Bush II. That was just a coincidence. OH, I forgot, I don't believe in coincidences.

Please, someone tell me what the Repugs would have done?

Don't you know that McCain would have won swift victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, assuring lasting peace and prosperity in both nations; brought full employment to the USA; stopped inflation; brought crime down to unprecedented levels; drastically reduced federal tax levels, yet increased revenue due to general prosperity; restored respect for our nation worldwide; assured good affordable medical care for all and would have greatly improved the nation's morality.

Waiter! I'll have whatever he's drinking and smoking.

And McCain would have rendered the latter legal.