Via Digby I think Senator Bernie Sanders has hit on the right question with regards to what form health care reform takes in the senate---So I think, with all due respect to Max and his hard work, it's the wrong strategy. I think the strategy should be to say to all 60 members of the Democratic caucus that even if you don't want a public plan in the final bill, you should commit to ending the Republican filibuster. You don't need 60 votes to pass legislation. You need 60 votes to end the filibuster. And if we do that, we can get a strong public plan that will be real change.
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Look, the Democrats said give us 60 votes so we can come up with something. They gave it to us! I'm not a Democrat, I'm an Independent, but I caucus with the Democrats. They gave us 60 votes. So how many do we need? Seventy? Eighty? I understand that there are some Democrats, without ascribing motives, who are not comfortable voting for a strong public plan period. But I think it is not asking too much that they vote against the Republican filibuster.
We need to stop asking pinheads like Lieberman or Nelson whether they prefer the public option, full on single payer or the do nothing solution all the senate "moderates" seem to be leaning towards. Their answers are as empty as their souls. If they're going to vote against the final health care reform bill because they remain industry whores that's their choice.
The real question is how they'll vote on cloture, not what sort of health care reform they'll support. That's how we're going to seperate the men from the boys. Or as in this case the men from the spineless weasels.
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I'll believe in actual single-payer universal health care when, like a new album, see it on the shelves.
And of course, the insurance companies will make up for it by secretly releasing high-tech toxins in the water supply thereby forcing us, lest we die, to purchase fancy filters.
Hey, I, for one, am sick of the wingnuts hoarding all of black helicopterdom.
Nicely done.
I agree w/ Randal- I don't see the changes that are needed are in the pipe, or even under consideration. And even if a few senators "commit" to blocking filibuster, do the leaders have any effective retaliatory powers when they change their minds?
I, too, subscribe to the Randal Grave's school of cynicism.
In high school in 1986, some bimbo in a power suit came to our "gifted student" class to tell us how wonderful for-profit healthcare would be. Here's another example of St. Ronnie's legacy biting us in the ass.
Now that corporate America has had more than 20 years to taste that delicious, delicious health care money in all its various guises, they aren't going to give it up. And who is chasing that same pool of corporate money? Dems and Repubs, the both of 'em.
But who knows? Stranger things have happened.
I'm officially in "wait-and-see" mode.
Just want to take this moment to gloat about my representative in DC.
Well said, Dean ... well said!
BAC
Their answers are as empty as their souls.
absolutely!
Hey! Some of my best friends are spineless weasels.
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