EVERYONE JUSTIFY YOUR VOTE!!!
Let's get real here--despite our support for public option and mandated insurance, the moderates in Congress are the majority when it comes to health care reform.
There are 55 liberal house democrats swearing not to support a compromise bill that guts public option and mandatory employer-provided health insurance,
Let's say 40 of those Dems keep their promise, if the compromise bill is promulgated.
There are 53 Dems in the blue dog caucus; let's assume the compromise bill is promulgated and 40 of those guys ultimately support the compromise.
So, from my count, that's +2 advantage for liberal dems (+/- 10, say, for margin of error).
Can we agree then that if the Ways and Means committee bill that taxes the rich gets passed, it will attract close to 0 GOP votes and lose most of blue dog support (but should ultimately pass)?
Can we agree also that if the 4 blue-dogs bill gets passed, it will attract at least somewhat more GOP votes than the above bill, plus the rest of the "indifferent" Dem caucus (i.e. those Dems not aligned with the progressive caucus nor the blue dog caucus)?
Therefore,
Regardless of the merits of implementing one or the other,
Couldn't we say that the bill with bigger support in Congress is the compromise?
Wouldn't these kinds of political dynamics carry over to the Senate (i.e. Senate Finance Committe)?