UPDATE: Let's pass healthcare reform

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UPDATE BELOW: I had started a post earlier bemoaning the state of the healthcare reform bill, but over the last few hours I've been reading many persuasive arguments for both killing the Senate bill as it now stands (quick recap: no public option of any sort, mandates for 30 million currently uninsured people to buy coverage, premiums capped at 8% of income...more here courtesy of Sen. Paul Kirk, Ted Kennedy's replacement and former Chief of Staff) and for voting in favor of it.  I'm torn, and here are the two most persuasive arguments pro and con:

In favor of the bill (with great graphics): Igor Volsky.

Against the bill (with a strong and principled argument): Cenk Uygur.

Cenk argues that the public option was the focal point of so much progressive advocacy because it fundamentally alters the rules of the health insurance game, in the sense that health insurers only make a profit through taking your premium payments and finding ways to pay out less in benefits than you pay to them in premiums.  The incentive for insurers, therefore, is to deny care when possible, which is morally repugnant on its face.  The public option would provide an oppositional counterweight to the reigning insurance industry model in the form of health insurance that is not concerned with profit so much as providing the most effective care the most efficient way possible.

It's heartbreaking to have to give up the public option at this point, however the fact is, there will be time to tinker with the bill, and key Democrats are now saying that the public option will be "revisited" legislatively as early as 2010.  After looking at Volsky's graphics and reading about how much money average families and individuals are projected to save on their health insurance, I have to support the bill.  The subsidies to help people pay for the insurance they will now be required to purchase are generous as they currently stand, and if our ultimate goal is to insure more people, then despite the compromises involved, this bill needs to pass.

UPDATE: Here is the most complete and understandable breakdown of how heath care reform will affect the premiums various families of four will pay as of 2016 (once the program if fully phased-in).  Be sure to zoom in on the table embedded in the text - it's quite impressive.  My hope is being restored, little by little...