Charles Pierce: The Beginning Of What Might Be The End
By Charles P. Pierce
So Bill Clinton, pretty plainly already in campaign mode, sounds the alarm in favor of the Shoddy Health Insurance Plan Protection Act of 2013, and some Democratic politicians saddle up? Forgive me if I say that I have seen this movie before.
The unspoken -- but fundamental -- basis for Clinton's triangulation on most issues during his time in office was somehow to enact something resembling progressive social policies while still staying in the good graces of the financial services industry and the Masters Of The Universe therein. This was a plausible strategy in the longterm only if a) you had a never-ending tech boom and an eternal housing bubble in your pocket, and b) there were still some Republicans invested in the notion that the United States should have a functioning national government. Neither of those elements exist today. The MOTU proved to be essentially destructive to the world economy, throwing us into a recession from which most of us have not yet crawled. And the Republicans have gone insane, giving themselves over entirely to a campaign of vandalism that is unprecedented in the history of the country. In short, this is no longer time to be listening to Bill Clinton on everything. His politics were formed in a different time under different circumstances.
If the Democratic party, through its elected leaders, bails on the health-care law even so far as go out of its way to let people keep their lousy insurance plans that do not come up to the Affordable Care Act's specifications, that's pretty much the ballgame. There will be barbering and compromising until hell won't have it and, eventually, the only thing left will be the Medicaid expansion, and we all know the vast influence that poor and lower middle class people have over the political process. (And, as Steve M shrewdly notes, the Democrats will get blamed for the deleterious effects of any changes now anyway.) There is far less of a downside right now to being stubborn, regardless of what the courtier press is telling nervous Democrats. Otherwise, the tracks already are cleared and you can hear the the train a-comin'.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bill-clinton-obamacare-rewrite-111313
How The GOP's 'Keep Your Health Plan' Bill Disrupts Obamacare
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024025850
Bill Clinton Is Wrong. This Is How Obamacare Works.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024026395
= new reply since forum marked as read
One guess. 
This time, however, I agree with him completely.
-Laelth
Among other things. 
... big dawg head into this. You could see it in his face too, that he shouldn't have been saying it. Did anyone else notice the stupid or unfamiliar look on Clinton's face when he said it? I knew exactly what he was doing. Already in election mode. I bet you a dollar he did not run that by PO before saying it. Bill, you did a bad, bad thing. Shame on you. And if Hillary was in on it, then shame on her too! "Third-way, Grand Bargain, Corporatist Democrats!" Shame, Shame, Shame! You done showed your true colors.
Where's the backbone, Democrats? What happened? If any of this ACA is changed now, it's just going to be chip, chip, chipped away. And before we know it, the ACA will not resemble what it did to begin with. If you think it's bad because it's not universal health care, you ain't seen nothin' yet. By the time the wingers get thru with it, we'll be forking over the money to em' scott-free, with nothing in return!
Buck up, Democrats! Grab that bottle of Geritol and bottoms up. Whatever... drink something stiff enough to clean the cob webs out of your head. THINK! 
Don't give in. It'll pay off in the long run.
And screw us over if you cave.
Why do some Democrats seem to be ready to stab another Democrat in the back if enough rethugs dislike what the Democrat is doing, proposing or speaking-in-favor-of?
An announcement that would be interesting to see the results of.
