We wanted single payer, but were told we couldn’t get it, so we may as well not try.
We wanted a hybrid European-style system, but were told we couldn’t get it, so we may as well not try.
We wanted a robust public option, and we wondered why the president wasn’t working hard to get one, but we were told to ignore the pronouncements of members of his cabinet and staff that the public option wasn’t that important, and only listen to his own occasional statements that he wanted a public option.
We were told that we shouldn’t worry that he wasn’t out fighting for a public option, and that he never drew a line in the sand, because we didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes, we didn’t understand the strategy, and the president would get us the public option that he kept saying he wanted.
We were told to accept mandates.
We were told to accept a public option with triggers.
We were told to accept a public option with opt-out.
We were told to accept a public option that still left millions of people out.
Finally, we were told the public option wasn’t that important, anyway.
Finally, we were told that after months of being told that we didn’t understand the strategy that was going to get us the public option, it wasn’t that important, anyway.
We were told to accept the Medicare buy-in, because that would be a huge step in the right direction, even if it was unclear whether there would be subsidies actually enabling people to buy in.
We were told to accept the Medicare buy-in, because that would be a huge step in the right direction, even if it left even more millions of people out.
Now, we’re being told that the Medicare buy-in isn’t important, either.
No matter how much “reform” is defined down, we are told to accept it and like it and support it.
And we still don’t know what we will get!
We are being told to support whatever we get, and we still don’t know what that will be!
I wonder how many will accept literally anything.
I wonder how many just want to pass something, anything, so we can pat ourselves on the back and claim to have reformed health care.
I have a simple question: what about Stupak? If Stupak remains in the bill, will we be told to accept that, too?
I have another question: is there any degree of compromise, of unilateral knee-capping, that will render the bill unacceptable?
Perhaps, for the sake of consensus, we ought simply to pass a Sense of the Senate resolution stating that “health care is good.”