Time for liberal Senators to stand up and vote against a health care bill that would require Americans to buy into private insurance plans. Private insurers (whether for-profit or non-profit) can pay their executives any amount of money they want. Government employees administering a public health system/ option could not be paid more than the President.
Here is the problem with the health care compromise: Democratic Leadership made the mistake of siding with the Conservadems and assuming that Senate liberals would "fall in line" on the compromise health care bill. The question is not whether the liberal Dems "fall into line" on the cloture motion or whether they stand up, do the right thing, and support a filibuster of the health care compromise. The issue here is that Democratic leadership in the Senate (Harry Reid) and the White House (Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama) felt it would be more important to ram legislation through that pleases nobody except for the insurance industry and pass a bill that places a partially unfunded mandate on Americans to purchase insurance from private insurers than to make sure that health care reform is done right. Health care reform affects 1/6 of our economy and is far too important to get wrong.
The fact that Rahm Emanuel and Harry Reid refused to use the budget reconciliation process (budget reconciliation would have actually made the bill simpler and shorter, even though the bill would have had to have been split into three parts) and instead decide to pass the bill under normal procedure WITH FULL KNOWLEDGE THAT LIEBERMAN AND OTHER CONSERVADEMS WOULD HOLD OUT FOR REMOVAL OF THE PUBLIC OPTION serves notice that the White House is not as liberal/ progressive as Barack would have led us to believe while on the campaign trail and when he was elected.
Rahm Emanuel is part of the diseased DLC/ third-way Democratic philosophy that brought us ineffective welfare reform, deregulation of the banking industry and deregulation of securities markets. The DLC Democrats also brought us Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers - who don't exactly subscribe to pure Keynesian Economic philosophy.
57% of Americans approve of a health care reform bill with a public option.
33% of Americans approve of a health care reform will without a public option.
The Democrats (at least in the Senate) must have a burning desire to lose their majority and their own seats.