Meanwhile, Howard Dean is shouting "Off with its head!" It appears he doesn't believe that a bill without a Medicare buy-in to replace the public option is worth fighting for. I suppose this puts him on the "operative" side of the wonks vs. operatives equation. So is Digby, who's rather a bit steamed. I lean wonkish, myself, but still don't think that giving in to Lieberman is a good idea, and so am currently eyeing Digby and Dean's position. I don't know about killing the bill, but killing Joe Lieberman's career is definitely a cause I can get behind. Too bad there's no recall for Senators.
Sen. Lieberman doesn't realize this, but the end of the world predicted in the Mayan calendar is actually the end of Lieberman's career. Sorely tempted to move to Connecticut for that year. Being able to cast an actual vote against that little ratfucker rather than merely donate money to his opponent would somewhat assuage my anger. Alas, I might have to become a Con if I want to vote against him all the way - the little shitheel hasn't ruled out a run as a Con.
He did, however, manage a half-assed apology that he refuses to acknowledge is an apology. That's okay, Joe. We don't need your apologies. We need your Senate career, freshly killed, on a silver platter.
Meanwhile, Steny Hoyer might think the House will swallow a reform bill without a public option, but Rep. Grijalva is breathing fire:
Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) lays it on the line. If Senate health care legislation doesn't move significantly to the left when House and Senate negotiators meet to resolve the differences between their bills, he's a "no."
"The Senate has somehow managed to turn the House's silk purse into a sow's ear," Grijalva says in a statement. "If what the Senate is doing isn't corrected in conference with the House, I will not support the bill. Since the Senate won't use reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes, it doesn't look promising for any real change."
Not too sure I'd be counting on his vote, there.
And, finally, I'm not sure how much I believe this will happen, but there's some talk that health care reform might end up killing SCHIP. And if that's the case, with no public option, no Medicare buy-in, and blessed little else, it might be time to join voices with Howard Dean and demand the bill be killed.
2 comments:
This may sound a little over-simplistic, but if Dems give up on the most important parts of reform, the bill which eventually passes is going to be relatively ineffective. In future elections, Cons will be able to point to this outcome and say "I told 'ya so".
Sometimes I wonder if, over the long haul, a good bill which fails to pass is better than a bad bill which does. Progressives should think this over long and hard.
American voters are overwhelmingly united in the idea that this country needs reform. Putting the right bill - that is, one with an effective public option - in front of congress for an up or down vote, would at a minimum give the public an idea of who is really serious about reform and who isn't. After all, why settle for a neutered health care bill now when passing such a bill lessens the prospects of genuine reform in the future?
It's not overly simplistic. That's the way political rhetoric often goes in this country. It isn't "we did this half-assed because it was as much as you'd accept, even though fully-assed was affordable and reasonable, and - wait for it - it failed." It's always "We told you it would fail, and it failed. Clearly, it won't work."
This argument never seems to fail with a large part of the public.
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