A good reflection of how fucked up our politics in this country has become, and how far we have fallen as a nation. The United States is broken.

broken, and I have no idea what the road to recovery is ... because this nation is soooo divided. I also don't like all of the surveillance and militarization of the country going on. It's a brew for very bad times IMO.

this: Does it make my side or the other side look good if it passes?"

I'm getting really cynical about politics anymore. I think it often does boil down to just that, which side will look good if it passes ... and also IMO who will get the most money. IMO people are often last in the equation, often "we the people" just don't count. Often I think quite a few politicians could give a damn about "we the people," other than the right political spin to get the votes from "we the people."

This is not some indirect Obama bashing, I'm just talking about politicians in general. There are some very good ones that do care about "we the people," but I think there are a lot of rotten apples in the barrel too.

1. Never agree with the other side, even if you need to turn your back on your own ideas, if they change their minds and agree with you.

2. Never compromise, demand all or nothing.

Those are the repig rules. The Dem rules are:

1. agree with the other side, and use their starting position in a debate as YOUR starting position. Then go right from there.

2. Always compromise, make no demands, let them have what they want.

Sadly, true for too many spineless and/or co-opted Dems.

most of us would rather have had universal health care. I'll take this baby step and keep fighting.

The only reason the GOP hates all of their own policies now is because Obama supports the same ones. I think Obama did an excellent job in his noon-ish address of pointing out that there's going to be a lot of "who won/who lost" shit going on. He didn't dwell on it, just stated it. He's right.

today. That he campaigned against it. ACA is not perfect. But if it helps people in need I am for it.

Pres. O and DEMs picked them up because, reasonably, the bill should draw bi-partisan support. But, the Republicans top goal was to make Pres. O a single term president. So, they stalled everything to deny the president any significant victories. Since the ACA was signed by Pres. O, they reversed themselves and attacked the major features. A SCOTUS determination that it is unconstitutional would deliver a failure to him. Now that SCOTUS found it to be constitutional, they attack the Act and the Court to increase support for Republican candidates, esp. Rmoney. It's not about credit for the Act. It's about control of the Congress and Presidency to deliver a Republican vision of the American society.

The reason everyone fights over who gets credit and who doesn't is to win the next election.

The underlying ideas seem to be of only secondary importance.

And ignore the rest.

Parts of the bill do come from prior GOP proposals ... but much of it includes things they HATE.

The question we should be asking ourselves is:

Which is worse: Obamacare, or the status quo ante bellum?

The "bellum" in this case is the veritable war between Reps and Dems over the Affordable Care Act.

In my view, Obamacare sucks, but the status quo sucked more, because it denied medical insurance to so many people.