Obama has promised NOT to bargain for lower drug costs

But Obama has "promised" to cut Medicare expenditures.

Less money for the elderly who are going to die "soon" anyway -- and even sooner if he gets his way.

While Palin's "death panel" comment may have been slightly over the top, it does scare the ____ out of the elderly when they hear Obama saying he will cut $100 million (or is it more?) out of Medicare.  Cuts will undoubtedly come in the form of denial of certain procedures to the elderly based on their life expectancy. Obama eagerly gives the example of how much he objected to the government funding a hip replacement for his terminally ill white grandmother. (Some people who are "terminally ill" manage to live for a very long time.) He says he would gladly have paid for her hip replacement out of his own pocket but did not feel the government should have paid for it EVEN THOUGH she was in GREAT PAIN and the hip replacement would have relived that pain. Well, goody for him that HE can afford to pay for procedures out of HIS pocket but many of us are not able to pay for costly procedures out of our pockets, so where are we and OUR loved ones?

In addition, I think it IS too late for anything we want to see in the healthcare bills; Obama is determined to pass something -- anything -- so he can take a bow for it. Never mind that he has already promised Billy Tauzin, the health care industry's chief lobbyist, that he will NOT bargain with the giant pharmaceuticals for lower drug prices and he will NOT allow for the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada (or anywhere).  http://www.truthout.org/080509H?n

All of the most powerful members of Congress involved in the healthcare issue have rec'd tons of money from the health industry lobbyists and are corrupted by that money.

Why didn't Obama propose his own coherent and complete healthcare reform plan for Congress to work off of? He certainly had years to come up with a plan. (Hillary had one and made it very public.) The answer to that question is that Obama didn't want to be blamed for anything.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed Social Security and unemployment insurance, he did NOT just turn the task of writing the legislation over to Congress; the legislation was written in the White House. If FDR were president today, he would have proposed a complete and coherent piece of healthcare reform legislation. Congress could then have accepted it as written or altered it, but everyone would have known the specifics of what was being discussed -- instead we have a mish-mash of bills and amendments. Most of the politicians out "explaining" the healthcare "bill" do NOT have a clue what will be in the FINAL bill. No one does -- and it is DISHONEST for them to act as if they do.

There is NO healthcare "bill"; there are an array of bills in the House and senate and it is really unethical for Obama to go around telling people what is in the "bill" when there is NO single, agreed-upon piece of legislation. I am fairly certain that when the House and senate go into conference to negotiate a single, final bill that both house will accept, things you and I care about will "miraculously" disappear and the health insurance and drug companies will have triumphed.

No, I am not persuaded that "anything is better than nothing" here. I think what we will end up with will be a mandate that everyone has to buy insurance from the PRIVATE health insurance companies, and those companies will make $billions off this deal.

Maybe I'll be seen to be wrong, but I haven't been wrong about much political in the past few decades so we'll see.