Grijalva Says The Senate Public Option Compromise Is A Non-Starter
I don’t get the fact ABC news said that even with the bill 19 million Americans will remain uninsured. OK what is trying to be accomplished? Isn’t the point to insure everyone? I guess not.
Ah, yes, this is the other thing. The House Progressive Caucus will reject any bill without a public option. So will Sens. Burris and (probably) Sanders.
And Lieberman is now even rejectingthe Medicare compromise (which was a compromise on the public option, which was a compromise with single payer advocates).
Hopefully, this will be instructive for Obama–you can’t compromise on fundamentals. He tried to find a happy medium, but the health insurance lobby is implacable. They took his compromise and met him halfway on it, declared victory, then had their man on the inside crush the watered-down deal.
The 60 votes in the Senate do not exist. The question is whether he’ll be able to get 51 senators to pass it via reconciliation–and what form that bill will take.
Right now, it’s looking like it’ll just be held up indefinitely … or until the Cobra extensions expire, millions are unemployed *and *without health insurance, and things get ugly enough for a large-scale, nationwide single payer movement.