Yea and it could mean lower costs and greater availability. Geez.

I'm stealing this from vitus, but, what did we do before Obamacare? Did we simply allow people to die?

Emergency rooms took up the slack. Which is a big problem because that's incredibly expensive. Probably the most expensive option.

As long as everyone keeps talking only about payment management rather than addressing the root cause of the issue of why health care costs so damn much, there aren't actually going to be viable solutions.

Obamacare is obviously a festering turd, but what we had before Obamacare wasn't an answer either. I've heard this crap about "people being able to go to urgent care without insurance and they're required to treat them." Sure, yup, that's the case. But what do they do, reset a broken leg and the person is still screwed if they need physical therapy? People wait until an abscessed tooth becomes so infected that they have to go to the ER? Let's be honest, that's not a solution. We've been spending a greater percentage of GDP on health care than almost every other industrialized nation for years, yet our health care ratings and people's health is lower. It's time to move beyond cost management and move beyond treatment of symptoms and actually have a true conversation about health care. Everyone is part of that problem; everyone should be part of that solution. This partisan bullshit is just that, side bullshit.

Since we need 60 votes in a few days it will take cooperation and compromise. I think Obamacare will implode before we get to something different.

When we start of something different, can we at least do very little harm to the folks that actually have to pay for healthcare...lets start there.

I would agree with you, its time for innovation to hit healthcare like it has in other industries, and its time for patients to own up and take responsibility for their health. We are a rich enough to take care of those that cannot take care of themselves but we are not rich enough to take care of those that refuse to take care of themselves.

No man. "We" need to continue to continue to talk about people dying. Pushing granny off the cliff. Starving the poor. Killing children.

That seems to work well.