PLEASE PEOPLE, LET'S GET BACK TO ELECTING PROGRESSIVES INSTEAD OF TYING OUR PRESIDENT'S HANDS BEHIND HIS BACK WHILE HE TRIES TO WORK WITH DINOS, BIRTHERS, and SECESSIONISTS IN CONGRESS.
What Obama is up to is called compromise, and there's nothing nefarious about it. It has nothing to do with the president being weak, or trying to give away the farm in the name of bipartisanship. Compromise is a political tool that is sometimes needed to get legislation through when your ideal package doesn't have enough votes.
To all those (especially Paul Krugman, whose nobel prize is heavy enough to sink a presidency) who argue that no health reform is better than health reform without a public option...I say, with friends like you, who needs enemies?
Even without the public plan, health insurance reform will eliminate discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, and provide DIRECT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE to people who can't afford the high cost of premiums.
Let's get real for a second. The public option IS A FIRST STEP TOWARD SINGLE PAYER. Those who are taking a "public option or nothing" stance are trying to hold reform hostage by refusing to compromise. Gridlock lies down that path. And, I truly believe, so does civil war eventually, as the split between left and right grows so large that the two sides will not be able to live together under the same flag. (Have you seen the numbers of people in the South who believes that Obama is a usurper of the presidency?)
Personally, I see nothing wrong with single payer. But near-universal coverage through insurance reform and subsidies is a damn sight better than nothing at all.
Toward the end of 2009, health care reform WILL PASS. And when we look back on it, what will history record? It will record a right-wing attack machine that vilified, demonized, and spread shameless lies. And it will record a progressive movement that, instead of lining up behind this golden opportunity to extend insurance to 40 MILLION uninsured Americans, decided to bitch and moan that the President made the compromises that were necessary.
Obama has been clear that he prefers a public option. I'm sure he's doing everything he can behind closed doors to make that happen, but if you have DEMOCRATS beholden to the insurance industry through campaign donations, he can talk until he's blue in the face without getting the necessary votes for it. We live under a democracy, not a dictatorship, and the President cannot create votes out of thin air.
Show me 60 Senators who go on record that they won't filibuster a public option, and I'll grant you that we have a sellout for a president. Until that time, please consider supporting our President's efforts to actually get something done.
Through compromise (on the stimulus package and now on health care) Obama has shown himself willing to be a one-term president, not because of the right but because of the left. That is a bloody SHAME when you consider the mind-numbingly obvious point that without compromise there would be NO STIMULUS and NO HEALTH CARE REFORM.
I end where I began. PLEASE PEOPLE, LET'S GET BACK TO ELECTING PROGRESSIVES INSTEAD OF TYING OUR PRESIDENT'S HANDS BEHIND HIS BACK WHILE HE TRIES TO WORK WITH DINOS, BIRTHERS, and SECESSIONISTS IN CONGRESS.
UPDATE: Elise's awesome diary takes a much more positive spin on what I'm trying to say. Good on him for being less combative.