Reactions from state-based progressive bloggers to the Senate health care deal are starting to trickle in. Here’s a short sampling.

*Ohio Daily Blog writes:

Swell. Democratic Senators have apparently negotiated themselves under the table and killed the public option according to AP. Get ready for the spin.

*At Blue Commonwealth (VA), one “front pager” writes that if Howard Dean “likes the compromise, I accept that,” given that “Dean began a quest in 2003 to bring health care reform to this nation.” Another ”front pager” feels that there aren’t enough details yet to reach a definitive conclusion on the Senate deal, but that there appears to be both “good news” and “bad news.”

*North Decoder is frustrated:

I’m getting pretty tired of all the “compromising” going on out there, too. Republicans want to make this the Democrats’ “Waterloo,” and it’s looking more and more every day like the Democrats are going to let them.

I still don’t understand why the Democrats started this game by punting on first down. Why would they do that? Why did the Democrats in Washington compromise universal single payer and the public option away before the negotiations even start?

Where did they learn their negotiation skills?

I don’t get it.

Yeah, I don’t “get it” either. How is it that Republicans managed to push through most of their agenda from 2001 to 2006, despite holding only a slim margin in the U.S. Senate, yet everything’s like pulling teeth for Democrats, even though they ostensibly have a “filibuster-proof majority?” Argh.

*Delaware Liberal has a different viewpoint entirely:

I am a liberal and I am a pragmatist. I am not one of those liberal purists who, like the current fringe of the right wing, scream like petulant children when they do not get 100% of what they want. So I will take this deal despite my disappointment in the lack of a robust public option. In the end, we want to forbid insurance companies from rescinding coverage when you get sick, and denying coverage for preexisting conditions, and we want to lower costs across the board for everyone so that premiums for everyone stop rising 10-20% each year, and we want to make insurance available to those who do not have it and cannot afford it. This compromise accomplishes at least three of the four goals there, and makes significant inroads on the fourth. So I will take it for now.

Hmmmm…not sure about that. We’ll “take it,” perhaps, because we may have no choice, but should we be happy about it? I don’t think so. Also, will all those good things that Delaware Liberal writes about really happen under the emerging Senate health care “compromise?” I have grave doubts, but we’ll see.

In other healthcare reform-related news:

* NMFBIHOP reports that “Senator Tom Udall has launched a video series on his YouTube account about New Mexicans speaking about why they need health care reform.”

*Blue NC writes about “a new postcard calling on Larry Kissell to get serious about health reform.”

*Blue Virginia has video of Sen. Mark Warner discussing his amendments on “bending the cost curve downwards.” Warner says we should do for health care what the IPhone did for cell phones.

*Blue Arkansas comments on Greg Sargent’s story that Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter “who’s widely rumored to be mulling a challenge to Lincoln, came to Washington D.C. to huddle with a group of labor officials and liberal bloggers to discuss possibly making the race…”

Anyway, that’s just a bit of what the state-based progressive blogs are talking about these days. What are you reading on your favorite state-based progressive blog?