This article states the four MoveOn members stood outside Snowe's office. Is this the majority that wants that is if favor of this horrible bill.

We do not need Washington running our nations healthcare. We do not need Washington to decide who should and who should not receive the medical care they need. Washington has made a mess of social security, medicare, etc., why would anyone think they can do a great job running healthcare.

True, we need lots of reform in our healthcare system, but the government is not the one to be making these life and death choices for us. Heathcare is between a doctor and his patients, not who the government thinks needs it.

Snowe, for once stand with your republican party not Obama. It was the people of Maine who voted for a republican because they wanted a republican not a liberal democrat.

"Mainers support a public option by 63 percent to 27 percent, according to a recent poll of registered voters released by Democracy Corps"

Sure- it's a true statement, if this self-serving Democracy ONLY polled registered liberal Democrats. The comments here and national polls indicate something very much different. The BDN was deliquent in not doing a fact check on data submitted by this radical left advocacy mob. If this poll were accurate, then more than 4 people would have shown up at the "gathering".

"In small numbers but with a strong voice ".. strong voice? Who are you kidding? Do you expect your readers are that dumb to believe that? Really?

Four old men...... that's it??

First off, the pisture is four woman! More importantly, health care is being dictated to us as we presently live. Instead of the government dictating it is a for profit HMO deciding what doctor we see and what care we recieve. A public option puts teeth into the bil! A system of checks and balances. I admire Snowe and voted for her because she is willing to make up her own mind, I did not vote for her because she is republican! I would like to know where Susan Collins is? Why isn't she fighting to help fellow Mainers recieve healthcare?

NO PUBLIC OPTION! Private business can never compete with government, because government does not need to make a profit, just operate at a deficit and print more money. AND DON'T USE MY TAX DOLLARS TO PAY FOR SOMEONE'S ABORTION, AND FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO GET "FREE" CARE. Note I said "illegal", not "legal". Sure we need reform, but the government taking over will make it worse! Allow more competition among insurance companies, so they do not make "obscene profits". Do you know that insurance companies buy insurance too? Limit law suit awards so doctors do not have to spend a fortune on insurance. Awards should be fair to the victims, but many of the lawyers involved are getting too much of the money! Drum out bad doctors. Speak up about them! (Thanks to the Machias reformers we will hopefully get a better hospital there.) We need more good doctors. Don't make it harder and harder to be a good health care professional. And what is this idea mentioned in other places of tying success to a doctor's fees? Doctors will then be forced to see only well people! Take some of the incentive money to give scholarships to students to study nursing and medicine.Politicians have gone crazy. Vote them OUT! Lastly, AARP (for RETIRED persons) wants to give medicare to people over 50, instead of over 65. In spite of the fact that Americans are living and working longer, AARP wants to lower the medicare age. AARP has also gone crazy too. Or is it just greed? That's my rant for today.

I'm with mapletonboy, not ALL Mainers want this public option and Snowe has to decide which side she is supporting if it is the liberals then maybe the Republican Party ought to consider their monetary support of her re-election campaign...they should be backing Republicans NOT those that say they are but their actions show us they are NOT.

Why don't these people who support a public option have Dirigo Health? Is it because it doesn't work? Do you really think the Federal Government is going to do any better than the state did? The Feds manage to screw everything up. I personally do not want my taxes to go up another 25-35% I couldn't afford it! Everyone thinks this is going to be FREE health care and it's NOT. The federal program is estimated to cost over $11,000 for a family of 4.

We need insurance reform alright...open up the state and allow out of state companies to provide insurance to our citizens! Competition helps the consumer!! Tort reform is something else that needs to be looked at!

I will remember all these liberal votes from our 'republican' representatives and senators! I won't be voting for them again if they keep voting like liberal democrats!

The lady with the obscene profits sign should check her facts before she whines. Insurance company profit margins are no greater than most industries. In fact, tupperware and hershey chocolate makes a larger profit margin. Profit is the major driving factor for progress. Sorry but your facts are just backwards and wrong.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091025/ap_on_go_co/us_fact_check_health_insurance

OMG.....MoveOn.org/George Soros/Hilary Clinton........the need to be a more "progressive"America and elect more "progressive" candidates?

My guess is that this croud doesn't pay taxes and/or is on welfare. Oh, their from the county? I'm right I guess.

How's the party of 'Hope & Change' - 'Tax & Spend' working up there ? if Snow votes for this and she'll with them; out of work.

I'm a registered Republican and I voted for Obama because he was going to finally give America a health care system that will allow us to compete with the rest of the world. We are spending more than any other developed country for our health care. American businesses can't afford to provide health coverage and also compete with foreign companies that don't. If our senators stand in the way of progress then they will lose my vote too.

It seems a bit odd that the BDN gives front page coverage to 4 protesters with signs, but couldn't send a reporter to Alton on Oct. 17th to cover an informational tea party attended by 100 people!!! No bias here.

The Government has no right to be in our health care. They have not 1 single program they are involved in that runs correctly or wihtout fraud and corruption.

You want National Welfare Move to California.

rnblnchrd wrote:

"My guess is that this croud doesn't pay taxes and/or is on welfare. Oh, their from the county? I'm right I guess.

How's the party of 'Hope & Change' - 'Tax & Spend' working up there ? if Snow votes for this and she'll with them; out of work."

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Not only am I sure that they have jobs, but I am also certain they can at least spell the word "crowd"

freedomfighter states that he was a republican. No real republican would vote for Obama to transpose america into a socialist state. How self delusional can a person get before he's diagnosed as a psychotic? Same for Snowe and Collins. It would appear that Maine has a severe illegal drug problem that has voided all sense of reality.

Maine is a poor state Why would they add more NO Public Option!

We as a country DO NOT want or need this bill. People really need to look into this bill it will force taxes to go up and then go and look at what Medicaid actually covers. You will be suprised.

Sen. Olympia Snow is not representing the majority of Maine citizens who favor a public option. We already have a public option-Medicare.

Medicare should be expanded to include the uninsured. Medicare has the lowest administrative costs of any insurance program, and it does require financial imputs by those covered. It is not Medicaid. The working poor and middle class are getting a lousy deal from the insurance companies that offer coverage in Maine. There is no competition and high deductible policies are not the answer. Competition is! Maine citizens who are self-employed and small businesses have suffered under the present system, hence they often do not have coverage or employers cannot offer affordable coverage.

I have yet to see an alternative to the public option offered by the opposition.

Perhaps the present bills in Washington are not perfect, but maybe some change will be a starting point for improvement in the future. We need to make the insurance and pharmaceutical industries stop ripping off consumers.

Watch Glen Beck and Fox News, not NBC OR CBS OR ABC, they never tell the story

“The public option is going to save the taxpayers money." I'd love to meet one "taxpayer"--who pays something other than sales tax--who will save money on this.

America and Maine need a Public Option. The corrupt insurance companies have gone too long with their monopoly and cartel status with peoples health care. Some CEO decides who lives and dies all the while collecting millions of dollar bonuses. We are the only industrial country on earth without government health care for its citizens. Snowe, please vote for the Public Option.

25, 000 MoveOn.org members in Maine? And all they could come up with was 4 lefty's at Presque Isle? How many at the other 5 offices? Not much of a turnout having that many members in Maine. But lacking the ability to turn out it's so called membership in the thousands, which is doubtful, the real name of the game was press coverage by a statewide newspaper. BDN LOVED IT. "IN SMALL NUMBERS BUT WITH A STRONG VOICE." JEN LYNDS INJECTS HER PERSONAL OPINION bolstering the gang of 4. That's called subjective reporting. Objective went out the window a LONG time ago. MoveOn is an obnoxious left wing liberal socialist bordering on communism and marxism. Progressive is the word now being used to pretty up the word socialism. A rose by any other name is still... FreedomFighter. Is that like in VETERAN or is it like in Raymond Luc Levasseur, United Freedom Front, aka home grown left wing liberal TERRORIST convicted criminal? You don't say you're a Republican. You say you're a REGISTERED as a Republican. That doesn't make you a Republican as you imply. You voted for socialism and you are getting it piece by piece and you had better hope that the "progress" you voted for is stopped before it is too late. Oh yes, "Progress" is the base word for "Progressive." Well, at least the gang of 4 are all set for HALLOWEEN!!!

Hurray for Maine people, they still keep whining and whining about a goverment health run system when we already have two of them. Medicare and VA. tell your veterans like me that was awarded a bronze star and two purple hearts with two tours in Vietnam, that from now on Mainers want them out of a goverment run health care system the VA and they will now have to start paying private insurance companies premiums, in order to get health care. Tell your seniors like me that they can no longer use Medicare a goverment run care system that I paid into for 65 years that they will and will have to look elsewhere to private insurance companies....

And tell the 47% that are on federal welfare in the state of Maine, that the federal goverment will no longer support them.....with federal dollars that are coming from other states except the state of Maine they live in......They wouldn't because they are not whinning....they are trying to take care of the poor while the rich take care of the rich and can afford Health Insurance while poor people can't and they either have to seel their home to beable to go to the hospital or go with out....We just had a neighbor couple from our church lose their home because the insurance company stopped paying her and her husbands medical bills because they were both ill and had pre exsisting conditions....they are both in their middle forties and it is happening all over Maine....but us Mainers don't get the message until they knock on our door with a notice of eviction and auction their home.....

SPALUMNI...there are a lot of Republicans who voted for Obama because they couldn't vote for McCain. And the Green Party--AGAIN--put up an unelectable "winner."

By the way, I am a Republican and my President Bush spent billions of dollars in Iraq and it hasn't made us safer and we are still spending billions building up another country that we tore down.....but when it comes to taking are of our own....well....now why would you want to do that.....we haven't earned that right I guess as yet.....we need to keep paying into the system until we earn the right to be taken care of like the Iraqi people are and in the other war....so what if it is a corrupt govt. lets send another 40,000 of our young people in there so they can have a honest election and save its people while ours back here are getting poorer....starving, going without health care etc....well we just haven't earned that right yet to be taken care of....but Iraqi people have....HA! We are just stupid....people that like to whine and whine and keep paying taxes to send it over seas along with the jobs....

Checks & balances in Washington? Are you kidding? Checks maybe into politician's pockets but you can forget anything being balanced. Check it out for yourself & see how many programs Washington, i.e. the government , is able to run efficiently. Darned near zero! A public option is the last thing we need & we certainly don't need the government running healthcare.

You said it, flyfishing. And if people want to know what gub-ment health care will be like, have them talk to someone who uses the VA. If you think you will get Blue Cross-style health care from Uncle Sam, you are deluding yourself.

Why not? Snowe is a Democrat anyway, no mater what she calls herself.

Amazing how no one likes her until she brings a bunch of union jobs to Maine. To hell with how she helps run the Country...just keep her nose in the trough for us! Pitiful.

Yes because a public option has worked so well in the state of Maine. Dirigo is an example of a public option. Meant to cover 175,000, but because it was so expensive they had to cap it at 12,000. Has totally decimated any type of competition in this state so we are paying much higher than our neighboring states for any health care. Is this really what people want for the rest of the nation? We need to build competition not debilitate it.

Anyone yet know who and how all this is going to be paid for? We can't even get medicare controlled yet we are going to add to it? Now one wonders why that wasn't the first thing they tackled and fixed before adding to it? Like barney frank said I guess, medicare isn't bankrupt,it just needs more money.

Dirigo should show folks how well the public option works. Ended up pirating away private pay or employer paid insured to Dirigo. Then had to meet all criteria set up by state legislature. Also found out that those folks signed up were the sickest and filled the most claims. To pay all claims rates needed to go up. Can't whine about insurance company getting all the dollars--run by out of state non profit. The geniuses in Washington have a mind block--if you set the rates low people will be happy. Never mind can never afford to pay all claims. Insurance rates are high due to high claims expense. If you saw 60 minutes last Sunday all you need to due is set up a pharmacy and rake in the money. Billions of dollars going to not so scruplious people. Maybe Obama figures he can staunch this hemmorage and pay for his dream. Doubtful but would be one step in the right direction. No discussion of tort reform is heard at all. Another factor in the high cost of insurance. Time for Move On to just that move on.

The President said there was over $900M in efficiencies (overhead waste and fraud) that would be found in Medicare and Medicaid. Does ANYONE believe that? You find offsets like that, I'll want to see where they go, if this plan fails.

flyfishing, you really don't understand do you? Number one the VA health care is a benefit given to you by an employer. Your employer happened to be the federal government. The idea is not to make health care free. That would cost way too much, because nothing is free. We will all have to pay for it. Why do you think that Maine is one of the highest taxed states in the nation? Why do you think that Maine has one of the highest priced health care in the nation? Dirigo, what is Dirigo? public option. Oh! you say Maine has a public option cool I will tell my friends who just lost their house because of losing insurance! Whoa there, can't do that. Because the price was so expensive for the state, a state that already pays more than anyone else in the nation, had to cap it at 12,000 people. That is less than 1% of the population in Maine. I am not saying there are not less expensive ways of doing it.There are. If people want to buckle up and take the loss of 1/5 of the jobs in the country we can get rid of insurance companies and have a single payer system. Or we can increase competition and get rid of regulations and create insurance portability.

I want gummint run car insurance, gummint grocery stores, and a gummint cellphone.

Move On morons don't realize that the government option will cost the entire wealth of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Move On's founder, George Soros and 350 of the richest liberals in America over the next 10 years. The 400 richest people in America are worth a combined 1.23 trillion dollars. Obamacare will cost 900 billion over the next 10 years and then it gets REALLY expensive after that. I'd rather just take care of that 10 to 20 million poor people on an as needed basis and give the 900 billion back to small business owners who create jobs through reductions in corporate taxes.

By the way. If you have a 401K or IRA. Check out how those "Obscene" insurance companies are doing for your retirement. Chances are that retirement package you were counting on is taking a major beating because the "Progressives" demonize the companies that underwrite those investments, financial institutions, gas/oil/coal industry, pharmaceuticals and insurance companies. I want these companies to make huge profits, create jobs and give me a comfortable retirement.

Let's see..... I'm over fifty, well insured, republican, haven't been polled....but I strongly support a public option. In my job I have daily contact with the working poor who are uninsured and I strongly support the public option. When will get polled?

4 people? Pretty much sums it up. And I bet the 4 of them are already living off the government. Cash for Clunker cost $24,000 per deal. So the government spent 24 THOUSAND to give people a $4,500 rebate. You think insurance company profits are so evil (which they're not, but it's an easy target for the uninformed)? You just wait for the innefficiences and crappy coverage that will be part of the government health care. People who want the government involved with a public option have no clue at all about the situation.

Four socialist in Maine BDN covers as big news, thousands of freedom fighters gather in Washington nothing, WHY?. The socialist have been trying to get someone else to pay their way for 40yrs can't they underestand Americans don't want it. Mainers are known for being independent so why is this even of interest in Maine, guess it's easier to be independent with the government paying your bills. Give you more time to live that tough independent life style. (This is it folks not place to go after you've ruind our freedoms here).

Why don't the bunch of you that want the Fed to take care of you Move to California? Seems they are busy taking care of everyone out there and the weather is better....save the feds a little on fuel.

The majority of this state followed Nobama too....does that make it right?