Jamison Foser makes an excellent point about the public option fight in Congress:
If people who want a public plan and won’t vote for a bill without it can be described as “preventing something getting done” by insisting on “all or nothing,” so can people who don’t want a public plan and won’t vote for a bill with it.
Exactly.
President Clinton implied over the weekend that perhaps the left should accept a good healthcare reform bill, even if it doesn’t have the public option. The corporate press has been repeating this drumbeat for several weeks now.
However, in the House, for example, there are considerably more progressive Democrats than Blue Dogs.
So why should the Progressive Caucus have to accept “half a loaf” while also being targeted as “all or nothing” on reform? “Half a loaf” for the Blue Dogs would be a bill with a robust public option, and a congressional aide described the Blue Dog positon as “hell no” today. Yet the progressives are the only ones who are being forced to back off.
Adding… I’m really sick of the phrase “half a loaf.”
UPDATE: The Progressive Caucus isn’t budging on the public option (aka. The Healthy Patriot Initiative).
