For all those critics of the HCR bill that will likely be passed and signed by the POTUS, please don't lift up a stone to drop on your collective feet. If this bill is not passed the right wing rethugs will be rejoicing and DeMint will be proven right. It will be Obama's Waterloo and his administration will be viewed by the country as a failed, ineffective presidency. The Dems will lose the 2010 midterm elections and health care reform will be put on the back burner for another decade. The progressive agenda will be suffocated before it even began to breathe.
The solution for the left is elect more progressives and reform the health care reform in 2011. Without this bill the Democrats will lose the House and Senate in 2010. If the Democrats rally behind the Bill and stake out a position that its just the beginning and not the end of health care reform they can increase their majorities and actually have a shot at fixing what is wrong with it, adding a stong Public Option or Medicare expansion come 2011. In 1934 FDR had a 69 vote foolproof Senate majority which increased to 76 Dem seats in 1936. If the Democrats rally around Obama and show a United Front progressives can perhaps turn the tide and elect a more progressive House and Senate in 2010. If we had a Rooseveltian Senate majority a strong Public Option or Medicare expansion would be a shoe-in. Other reforms that are now languishing could also be approved. To kill the bill now is remarkably short-sighted and ahistorical. It would amount to an infantile disorder. The left needs to grow up and seize the day. Pass this bill now and work to improve it in the next Congress. Otherwise you will have only yourselves to blame for a Rethuglican resurgence and a lost golden opportunity to have real progressive health care legislation sooner than later.