The liberals and progressives in the Senate would NOT have voted for the HCR act if they

[still_one]

didn't believe that this bill was better than what currently exists

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. An unspeakably low standard and almost impossible to fail at meeting. nt

[Motown_Johnny]

2. obviously, but still is an improvement.

[Edweird]

12. Cuts in Medicare and expansion of for-profit corporations is an improvement?

Not to me it isn't. Granting the entities that made healthcare so barbaric and unattainable a government sanctioned and enforced monopoly is NOT an improvement. It is a big step towards the RW wet dream of privatization.

[AndyA]

3. Just about ANYTHING is better than what currently exists.

This issue is what is not currently in place: cost controls and competition to keep premiums down.

In current form, the Senate bill is a HAND OUT to the health care insurance companies. These for profit corporations are already making huge profits, so the industry isn't in decline.

This forces people to pay premiums for health care, premiums that are set by the private for profit corporations. This is yet another monthly bill people can't afford. This is especially true with 17%+ actual unemployment.

What remains to be seen is how many changes will be implemented in the final version. Providing competition and mandatory cost controls must be put in place, or health care costs will continue to be out of control.

It's too early to see what we'll eventually wind up with, but the bills they're starting out with fall far short of what they really need to be.

Comparing the current Senate bill to the status quo is lowering the bar all the way to the floor.

[ixion]

4. poppycock...

I'm sorry, but I find that premise naive.

[Umbral]

5. The liberals and progressives in the Senate would NOT have voted for the HCR act if they

didn't believe that passing the bill was better politically than admitting failure.

[Unvanguard]

8. They could have voted "No" and blamed Obama and the leadership.

Coming from people like Feingold and Sanders, who have been publicly disgruntled, it would have been perfectly in keeping. It wouldn't have been their failure, it would have been the lack of will on the part of other people, just as so many DUers have been calling it for the past two weeks.

But they didn't. They didn't even on the vote for final passage, which didn't matter; they could have backed passage for political reasons but still cast a principled vote against the bill, they had some wiggle room. But they didn't.

[Lerkfish]

6. naivete about political realities

does not make something so.

[HughMoran]

14. bitter "nothing is ever good enough" is the most naive of all

there are other ways to view the world

[kctim]

7. Does this mean

that everyone who voted for it are now to be considered corporatist DLC blue dog scum who should be primaried?

[laughingliberal]

9. There's that black and white thinking again

I think many of them are voting for it because of a political reality. They feel a defeat on this for the president would be a problem for the party and the president. The ones who I know are against it probably do believe they can make it better or cling to some hope that, at least, some people will be better off. I would prefer a principled stand from them but they are all, at the end of the day, politicians. The better ones have, at least, given us the heads up as to who was behind pushing the bill to the right so we know who we're dealing with. I think we know who needs primarying.

[shraby]

10. They also know a defeat means no bill to improve on.

[laughingliberal]

11. Passing this does not leave us a bill to improve on, either

Obviously you don't agree but I have studied this thing from every angle and a bill we could improve on would, at the minimum, need to take a step in the right direction. This bill takes us further down a road we are already on. There is a reason people who mean the party no harm are opposing this. And all the people in the world repeating this talking point endlessly is not going to make it so. We are further entrenching the interests who have been robbing us all these years and doing it on the backs of the working and middle class. It is not a 'good start.' It is a disaster and another nail in the coffin of the working and middle class. Period.

[kctim]

13. Ah, got it

so throughout this whole fiasco, calling everybody who were not in lockstep with the public option, DLCers, really was nothing more than whining. Thank goodness its so easy to redefine.
So much for all the principle over party BS thats spouted non-stop on here.

[laughingliberal]

15. A diversion from my point, I think

I was responding to a post that asked if we now thought we should primary everyone who voted for this bill. This was a bit off topic.

But since you asked those who could not see that passing this particular bill without a public option was a disastrous set up for more downward pressure on the middle and working classes may have been DLCers or there could be other reasons for it. It could be they don't understand the laws of unintended consequences, they could be people who are not well versed in the ways of the for-profit industry and think these 'reforms' in there do not have loopholes the size of the Pacific Ocean, they may be true converts who think our legislators will go right to work fixing it. I don't know their motives and have not questioned their motives. Whatever the motive for supporting this bill without a public option does not change the nature of the bill or the consequences of passing it.

[Davis_X_Machina]

16. There aren't any liberals or progressives in the Senate...

...except Dennis Kucinich, who isn't a Senator.

They're all corporate tools, and sellouts, and hacks, and traitors.

Sanders is the worst -- DINO's are bad, but SINO's are worse.

[ThePhilosopher04]

17. If I'm not mistaken, most "liberals" in the Senate...

voted to give Bush authority to invade Iraq too...just saying.