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This morning, PhRMA and AHIP are seeing their sweetheart deals with Rahm Emanuel fizzle. The Senate is in disarray because the House won’t pass their corporate giveaway, and Harry Reid says their bill is going nowhere.
We won this round. The White House/Baucus bill is DOA.
But none of this would have been possible had Raul Grijalva not stood his ground and refused to budge when every vote counted. Even when it was considered a fait accompli that the public option was obsolete and the Senate must be obeyed, Grijalva stubbornly refused to go along. He showed leadership throughout, and stood on principle when others were fleeing.
He knew that the majority of the people in the country did not want to be forced to pay money to the private insurance companies that they hated, and he stuck to his guns. And over time, the common sense populist wisdom of that position prevailed.
Yesterday, Mike Stark presented him 36,000 signatures that we collected to show support when he was being pilloried as a “monster,” and being told to “to stop making threats, join hands with [his] Democratic brethren, and just get this done” by other progressives.
Mike spoke to Rep. Grijalva at his office on Capitol Hill:
GRIJALVA: The Senate bill for many of us is off the table. There’s just too much in it, And I don’t the lack of a public option. As you well said, there’s a lot of giveaways in it to corporate America. And more importantly it does nothing to really deal with the population of people that need health care in this country. So that’s off the table.
I don’t know what leadership is going to do in terms of demanding that the Senate do a reconciliation vote, and what we’re going to amend that bill with. Or if we’re going to do things in an incremental way. We’re waiting to hear what that decision’s going to be. But as far as for myself and I think others, the Senate bill in its present state is off the table.
STARK: I think a lot of people have got a newfound respect for progressives that are willing to stand on principle, because it’s been a lot of time since that’s happened. And I know I and a lot of people at Firedoglake Action have you to thank for that. So thank you very much.
GRIJALVA: Well thank you very much. And thank you for what you’re doing.
Against all odds, the $1.4 million being spent each day on lobbying failed. Those who insisted that it was unfair to force the country to pay money to private insurance companies without the alternative of a government run program won. We won because of Raul Grijalva’s leadership, and because the public rejected a health care bill that put corporations first and people second.
Now it’s time to return to the task of passing real health care reform. And this morning in the Houuse, Chellee Pingree and Jared Polis are pushing the Senate to reconsider the public option.
But that’s only happening because Raul Grijalva stood strong. Please say thanks by donating to his campaign, because you know PhRMA won’t.
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amazing to me that the MSM has been able to spin the myth that Obama has been to far out to the left and is moving to the middle. Hell single payer was barely whispered about and the fact that the “public option” is the middle has been avoided. the public option is the compromise and ^0% of Americans agree
Awesome! Now can we get him to filibuster Bernanke?
That is the sweetest post I’ve read in a long time. Today is going to be a good day.
If he was in the senate I bet we could.
Monstrous thanks to Congressman Grijalva and a donation on it’s way to him nlt friday afternoon.
and yes, now we know why he wasn’t selected for Interior Secretary, don’t we ? :D
So does anyone else like Raul Grijalva for our next Speaker of the House? Joe Lieberman will be so pissed he was the De facto Senate leader but if he can’t get bills passed he is not a Senate Leader.
This will shake things up as much as the Coakely fiasco. I’m not sure where I stand on it — since visions of Weimar keep popping up in my head, and we can certainly see really bad people out there hoping our system of government will fail (and I mean people in America). I think on the whole it would be better if the liberal members of the House caucused separately and voted as a unit. Never happen, though.
Thank you, Rep. Grijalva!
I made a contribution to him last week at ActBlue to show support. I have no problem making another one to join in FDL Action’s effort to say thank you.
I’m glad to see Jane optimistic about members of the House pushing Senate Democrats to reconsider the public option, but is there any chance that’ll work?
Yes it is. Everyone who made calls, signed petitions, made donations, took action — it worked.
A month ago after I looked over the list of Blue Dog challengers and did an evaluation of their districts, I said to Glenn Greenwald “I think there’s a possibility of actually stopping this.” He said “I give you a 10% chance.” I said “I think we’re up to 50.”
Working on a post of Senate members who said they’d support a public option now.
Slight correction:
I believe that should be something along the line of, “I don’t LIKE the lack of a public option.”
Thank-you, Rep. Grijalva. I wish representatives like you were the rule and not just the exception.
Here’s what I think. Dump the reform and remove the health insurance anti-trust exemption. It is not going to put poor people get health care, but it will at least stop the looting of those who are currently insured. If we are going to go one step at a time, this should be the first step.
Thank you Representative Grijalva. A human being in our congress. One that puts the people first.
thank you Sir!
Grijalva ought to win funding from FDL. Has anyone in-district recommended him?
Hard to see how Budget recon fix will get his vote
Grijalva Seeks Best Path Forward on Health Reform, Remains Committed to Affordable and Accessible Care For All
Friday January 22, 2010
Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, released the following statement today on the status of the health care reform effort:
“Millions of Americans are watching Congress very closely today to see how health care reform will proceed. The vast majority of House and Senate lawmakers agree that we need to increase health care access as much as possible, bring costs down and institute common-sense insurance industry reform. The question is how to go about doing that.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus and I are diligently working with our colleagues and House leadership to find the best way forward. We continue to seek meaningful regulatory reform and cost containment measures, as we promised the American people at the outset of this process. My objection to simply approving the Senate bill has upset many who believe the problems with the bill – which are too numerous to count – will be fixed through either the budget reconciliation process or a simultaneous bill amending the worst elements.
I believe that a fix of the required magnitude could not pass both chambers of Congress in a timely fashion. Instead, I favor a two-part approach. Part one would be to pass a clean reconciliation bill requiring only 51 Senate votes that would include many important budget-related elements. This would not merely amend the Senate bill; it would pull the best budget-related items supported by the vast majority of American people from the existing reform bills and create a single transparent piece of legislation. Part two would be to send a separate handful of popular regulatory measures to the Senate, where they enjoy bipartisan support. These would include insurance cost controls, portability between jobs, ending the use of preexisting conditions to deny coverage, prohibiting lifetime and annual limits on benefits, prohibiting age and gender discrimination, establishing essential benefit standards, and ending the practice of rescission. This approach ensures that much of what we sought to achieve with health care reform will be enacted without the need to re-engage a debate on how to ‘fix’ the irredeemable Senate bill in the face of unrelenting Republican obstructionism.
I cannot support the Senate bill for the same reasons I could not before. It is a collection of unfair elements, including last-minute deal-making with certain individual senators in exchange for their votes, that has incensed voters across the country. It does not add up to an improvement in our health care system. I regret that we have come to this point in the reform process, but now that we are here, we should follow a path that gives us the greatest chance to pass the laws we need and deserve and delivers affordable health care services to all Americans. Viewing the Senate bill as the simplest and least controversial vehicle for reform is a tempting but misguided trap. The bill forces people to buy insurance they could not afford. It places the burden on middle-income families it is supposed to protect. It does nothing to change insurance company behavior. In total, it is a recipe for disaster down the line. There are too many elements of this bill that make no sense for me to cast my vote in favor.
I remain committed to working with my colleagues to find the best path forward. As we do so, our first priority will be to achieve our long-standing goal of affordable, accessible health care for all consumers.”
Wow, congratulations to Rep Grijalva, Jane, FDL and the line of progressives who are standing up for themselves.
What transpires from here forward depends on Obama and Senate leadership dealing with this progressive strength “pragmatically”: finding a way to get a decent set of elements into the reconciliation to make it viable for progressives to support it.
There lies the line between “pragmatic” and “sellout”. Will they seize a deal even if it doesn’t have all corporate bennies that *they* want in it?
Thanks to you Jane, and thanks to Rep Grijalva, contribution made.
Totally OT but I thought this tidbit about the AZ-07 was interesting. The narrowness of the respective results for Kerry and Obama surprised me.
Appears Rep Grijalva is not ever going to be on board “Pass Senate bill then do budget fix” – and is into “do the right thing – ??Medicaid expansion, Medicare buy-in, public option, drug reimport, drug price bargaining – I assume??”
YAY! Hoooray for our side!
Now, how are we going to get REAL health care in this nation?
How are we going to stop the decimation of the middle class?
How are we going to stop this country’s slide in to Fascist Corporatism?
Thank you Rep. Grijalva for your courage. You can expect some continuing rough treatment from the corporate media machine. Pharma IS the major advertiser in their use of the people’s electromagnetic spectrum.
The MSM devoutly feels it’s not NICE to fool Mother Big Parma (to paraphrase a 60′s commercial).
Let’s not forget that Jane’s effort to whip the CPC allowed Grijalva the cover to get this done. Without Jane, this likely wouldn’t have happened. Yay Jane!
having an ironic chuckle thinking of those who supported in the past when they knew it was ‘safe’, now suddenly on the Accountability deck :D
How will Rahm spin this as another Great Bwahahaha! Victory?
Isn’t it amazing what one decent human being can do!
I will contribute today.
He is supporting passing the Senate bill with a fix as part of two-part strategy, per what you just posted:
That’s the “sidecar reconciliation” that Jon Walker has been advocating.
that has pissed me off from the beginning, that if somehow, some way, something progressive was passed, this ass* would take credit
Bingo
Certainly the PR you posted up-thread would sound that way. He says that he thinks Senate bill is irredeemable, even as part of sidecar reconciliation.
I am not particularly sanguine about anything decent coming back in through reconciliation (public option, medicare expansion or buy-in) given the DLC-ish noises Obama has been making in the past week (with exception of Volcker’s bank regulation proposals), but I don’t think there’s any chance that a new bill, as Grijalva wants, is an option in the real world. Hooking something to this Senate bill through reconciliation would seem the only option with any chance of happening.
Thoughts?
Yay everyone! It was all of us pulling together. In the face a lot of real nasty bullshit from the Democratic establishment, the corporations and their willing toadies.
You did it. Pretty remarkable. We always said — until the price of health care is doing it right, the White House and the Senate will not try. And we’re there, because people wouldn’t cave to corporatist bullies.
Woo Hoo! Thank you all for your work t/here, Jane. This is some change I could get behind. Also.
Hmmm, read it again. Maybe you’re right, that is what he’s saying.
Jane — fabulous! Once they admitted that they really didn’t 60 votes — an admission that was reinforced by their swift move to protect Bernanke’s nomination — this was inevitable. Now they’re forced to give America the bill they’d promised them at the start, without any PhRMA giveaways.
And you and Rep. Grijalva did it.
Really? Sounds like he’s proposing a new bill:
If it works fine, but sounds like he is proposing a new bill including only super popular elements that even Rs support.
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
You get an Oakleaf cluster for your Norske Medal of Citizenship, Sister Jane and you get a well deserved parade lap around the Capitol Building in a pink ’59 Cadillac Coup de Ville chauferred by Rahm Emmanuel. Now please get us whatever scoop you can on the power struggle in the House, has anyone established any kinda relationship with her speakership, the Honorable Phony Nancy Pelosi? It seems to me that not only has healthcare reform been saved for the moment at least but that for the first time in post Civil War history political leadership has been taken from a sitting President by members of his own party in the House of Representatives. This is no mean feat and it blasts a huge whole in the Chinese wall of corporate control of congress…if there is to be real political and economic reform in the next 6 years it’s gunna come from a populist base in the House of Representatives with control of the DNC in the hands of someone outside of White House control.
So Sister Jane, what’s shakin’ behind the scenes in gettin House leadership in line with the voting base of the Democratic Party?
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN’ AMMUNITION, THIS WHOLE MESS STARTS AND ENDS WITH THE GREAT CORPORATE WARS!!
A cat-herder’s job is never done.
and I will be serving up platters of crow for the deserving multitudes :D
very unfiredog-like I know, but there are some who . . .
p.s. I will gladly sit down to a plate full myself if Polis actually pulls this off :D
Message sent to http://www.whitehouse.gov today
VERY IMPORTANT!!!
See that Mr. Pluffey inserts this into The State Of The Union speech tonight!
I pledge to veto any bill that increases the national debt unless it authorizes a bipartisan commission to recommend a plan to bring down the deficit through spending cuts and tax increases. I will do so even if it means shutting down the government until a commission is authorized.
Next week, I will send to Congress for its immediate consideration a health-care package that features a robust public option and blends the best features of the House and Senate proposals while stripping out provisions meant to buy the support of individual legislators or special interests.
Given the urgency of global warming and the political difficulties of passing a complex cap-and-trade bill, I am asking Congress, as an interim step, to impose a modest carbon tax beginning in 2011 equal to 25 cents on a gallon of gasoline, rising to 50 cents in five years, with the revenue to be used to reduce payroll taxes. That will result in no net increases in federal taxes.
Tonight, I am instructing the Secretary of the Treasury and other financial regulators to draw up a plan to implement as many of the financial reforms that I have proposed as possible, using the broad regulatory authority they have under existing law. The plan will take effect April 1 unless Congress acts on a broader regulatory reform bill.
Attention Jane and Arianna: can you help me to get this letter to Mr. Pluffey right away?
Whatever comes next, I’m happy that Rep. Grijalva has stood firmly against the Senate’s bad joke on the American people and joined FDL Action’s initiative to thank him. Contribution made!
Yes, amazing how that worked.
Setting that 60 vote hurdle really was an interesting way to ensure that only a minimal sellout bill could get through.
It’s sailing a boat over a reef just shallow enough to clean the barnacles off the bottom. No captain who ever tried that should ever get the helm again.
Jeez, who knew that Progressive ideas were so scary and such anathema that Obama et al would risk the ship of state on the rocks just to try to strip them out.
Thanks to Fox and Limpy Limbaugh, the MSM is mostly about myth repeating and not about actual reporting.
Open the door
and lie on the floor
I’m Barnacle Bill the Sailor!
This is the piecemeal approach I was talking about the other day. Rep. Pascrell supports this approach because the Senate Democrats won’t let anything better happen in comprehensive legislation.
See my diary With Real HCR Gone, What’s Left (If Anything)? (Jan 24, 2010).
It was all about the money. Obama and his people feared and still fear the effects of PhRMA and AHIP running wall-to-wall Harry and Louise ads during the 2010 election cycle, so they tried to forestall that with the PhRMA deal, to at least keep the coming ad onslaught down to a dull roar. But their strategy came at a price, which turned out to be the Senate seat of Teddy Kennedy and the endangerment of several House seats.
Thanks – I read it too quickly and mis-understood it
But the side car issues that have been revealed are very limited – I suspect we will be back to Medicaid, Medicare buy-in, drug reimport, and drug price nego., and Medicare Part D donut hole fix., and public option.
Call me a curmudgon but I see this not as “good” but as “not bad”. “Representatives standing by their pledges and principles” Is that really something deserving of celebration?
I’ll support them when they support us. That means not just when bad legislation is stopped but when good legislation is signed into law. I’m not giving up hope on this. Some may call me a fool for that. But we really need to make it clear, The work of the people needs to be done! If the Dems listen and turn things around they win. Their current course leads over the cliff for them and us.
I read that to mean the parts not in the budget recon bill – the regulatory changes – are popular enough to get the GOP to vote yes in a separate non-budget recon bill.
But I could be wrong – won’t be the first time :-)
Good stuff, Jane. We needed a win, badly. Thanks for toting it up. :o)
headed out, bbl
Jane Hamsher you so effing rock !!!!
this latest development: one more turn in the wild ride that has been HCR since 6/23
mad progressive love to all
This is EXCELLENT news!! Thank you, Jane and FDL for making it possible & working so hard!!
And Huge, HUGE thanks to Rep Grijalva for having the integrity to back it up!
Maybe if Rep Grijalva wrapped a faux fur around his shoulders and put a young scanitly clad babe on his arm swinging her ass to and fro Chris Matthews would interview him about what has taken place.
Saw the clip of O’keefe and swinging babe 16 times in 10 minutes last night on hardball.
Thank you Rep Grijalva for proving there is at least one Democrat who is not actually Corporatecrat beneath the veneer of his Republican/Democrat political identity.
Actually, Tweety would fawn all over Rep Grijalva if he had Scott Brown’s male model looks. That’s what seems to get Tweety all in a hot bother.
It’s not news to Chris unless sex is involved. His constant panting is getting very old.
Well, I think that piecemeal might have been a way to get some points on the board last spring. In Jan/Feb 2010, I think there’s no chance that you’ll be able to find the votes (or even the leadership inclination to bring new health care related legislation to the floor) you need to get piecemeal reform done.
How do you break these things up? Mandate is there to damp moral hazard problems that would arise from limits on pre-existing conditions and rescission. So, to do rescission and pre-existing without blowing things up in a couple years, you need mandate. And to do mandate, we want public option….
Couldn’t get re-import done a couple weeks ago. What’s changed?
Piecemeal ignores everything that’s happened since spring both policy development wise and brass-knuckles politics wise.
If it is true that the corporations have sold the Senate Dems on the meaning of MA being no changed to health care – so that there is now less than 50 votes to pass even the current Senate bill, then obviously side car and doing anything good via budget recon is out the door.
I see the only course is to do nothing on health, then staying home in the election so that the GOP gets a massive win (Obama might even veto GOP legislation but I suspect he really wants to sign GOP ideas into law so as to be bi-partisan – - – - 90′s 3′d way on steriods).
The health system – and because of the health system crash the economy – will crash in 4 to 6 years. Only then will single payer be put in effect.
Obama and the corporations would rather the destruction of their own profits than giving us single payer a few years early – and thereby preventing any crash that would be caused by health care crashing.
I wish I could offer him oodles of campaign contributions.
Good word from him and FDL. Thank you.
Congrats to Mike Stark and Jane!
But c’mon Jane, I know you don’t believe that Reid quote about the Senate effort on pause. They’re just waiting for the House to make their reconciliation proposal.
Also, I don’t know if it’s the WH/Baucus bill, per Politico today:
I think you and Knoxville are right that he’s talking about piecemeal approach (my post @29 was intended to respond to yours @15).
Where are those “popular things even some Rs would vote for” hiding? As I said upthread, if it works, fine… I just don’t see how it works.
That said, I think this development really improves bargaining position for sidecar reconciliation.
Actually you can do piecemeal – the actuarial work is an easy lift (I am a retired actuary). You do a “normalization of claims” – the same thing the Savings Bank Life Insurance system did for a century for its member banks. It is in effect a calculation of expected losses by age, sex, and any other parameter that was used in setting premium, and then moving money around so that everyone has the same actual to expected ratio – it is a type of reinsurance pooling. It requires a law that says everyone must be in the pool – but I believe that can be done in budget recon.
It does not require a mandate.
Better is single payer as a modification of the Medicare law – and this can indeed be done as a budget recon bill.
David Dayen has a fresh cross-post in progress on the front page: AIG Hearing: Geithner Defends His Actions
Thank You! Raul Grijalva
Awesome Work! Jane
It is about time that real progressives got voice in Washington DC
Although Matthews did ask some tough questions of the “best and brightest” Bill Kristol, David Frum, Gaffney and other warmongers before the invasion. I heard him numerous times. Hell the word was out that Cheney or Libby made a phone call to Tim Russert to try to get Matthews to shut up.
Matthews was also the first to go into Walter Reed in 2004 or so and broadcast from Walter Reed and show the young men and women who are injured for life based on the Bush administrations “pack of lies”
Matthews does some good work and then at times trips all over his dick
There will not be any other health reform bill.
The only way to get anything passed this year would have been for the House to pass the Senate bill. Without reconciliation, or sidecars, or any other complicated 11-dimensional chess magic pony strategies.
But the last eight months of cumulative HCR trashing by the teabaggers and the progressive blogs and the health insurance companies and the Republicans has worked. The momentum has reversed — all health care reform efforts are now radioactive, and your politicians are scampering away as fast as they can.
Thank You Rep Grijalva.
Thanks Jane, it’s always nice to know ,our efforts haven’t been, a waste of time.
I was beginning to lose hope, that we would ever see, a decent health care bill
Pingree is my rep and I’ve been peppering her with somewhat, ahem, dyspeptic emails regarding HCR, explaining that in the absence of any declarations to the contrary, I’d just assume she’d be a typical democrat and fold up like the 80s red sox – i.e., cave in on the senate bill. Maybe I owe her an apology and thank you? Or, perhaps she needed to read some emails from unhappy constituents.
To FireDogLake don’t get complaisant.The corporate center pushing the fight against We The People.The center corporate Republicans saying Mr. president move to the right.The center corporate Democrats pretending to be progressives Mr.president we will pass it and spin it if it’s good for the corporation’s.The progressives and I’m not talking to the center talking heads pretenders. I’m talking to You The People For The People. And the Tea Party not the center talking heads pretenders.I’m talking to You The People For The People.Thank you for starting This nation back down the long road of a Goverment For The People.Stay loud the squeaky wheel gets service.Don’t let the talking heads define what you think The People think.Progressive or Tea Party.
You know what’s “monstrous”? An HCR bill that deliberately and cynically excludes undocumented immigrants. Raul Grijalva’s district stretches from Tucson, across southern rural AZ, to a small part of South Phoenix. It has a large population of undocumented immigrants, who may not be able to vote, but who are his constituents. Let the pious jerks castigating this good man go into his district and defend that.
As I understood Pascrell’s plan, it would be divided into three groups:
First, insurance regulations.
Second, expansion of coverage.
Lastly, tort reform.
At least, that’s what I recall from what he said the other night. Piecemeal would not include a public option.
I knew Raul when he was on the School Board in Tucson. I am glad he stood up for his principles rather than drank Obama’s bipartisan Kool-Aide.
Piecemeal not including a public option is not a buzz killer IF we can get buy-in Medicare at age 50 – the way Joe L proposed all of 4 months ago – before he was against the idea.
We won? We won?? Really???? WE WON!!!! Wheeeeee!!!!!
Thanks Jane. This is huge.
Rep. Grijalva is a modern hero. Nothing less.
I am so proud I signed the petition.
Thank you, Rep. Grijalva. It couldn’t have been easy. And if my criticizing you and your caucus helped in any small way, I’ll gladly do it again. But meanwhile, you’ve moved from the “hapless bystander” category to the hero category.
I just kicked Rep. Grijalva $200 through the ActBlue thank you page.
It’s really, really, really important that we “train our representatives” by punishing them when they’re wrong, and (equally, if not more important) rewarding them when they do good.
Grijalva ain’t perfect, but on the HCR battle, he’s one of the good guys.
At the end of the last hour, MSNBC reported that Pelosi has the votes in the House to pass the Senate’s bad joke on the American people. No mention of a public option.
Haven’t found any confirmation yet, though there is one twitter report that says Pelosi’s office flat out denied it was true.
Thank you, Rep Grijalva, you’re an outstanding and upstanding congressman. I just wish I had been able to manage a larger contribution.
Congrats to Jane and her great team.
$25 to Rep. Grijalva.
$25 to FDL.
Nah, they pulled that back. She doesn’t.
Thank you!
I matched you, but gave all $50 to Mr. Grijalva this time.
Still, kudos to Jane and FDL. Here is first amendment function in fine fettle for firedoglake!
Three Cheers!
I don’t have any problem with health insurance reform that doesn’t have a public option — as long as there’s no mandate to buy private insurance.
It was never the best strategy, just the one they all said was supposed to keep from making the whole thing monstrous. When they backed out of that, it was clear where this was going — and it needed to stop.
I really do sincerely detest that little wanker in the whitehouse. Grijalva’s brave humanity and Jane’s tactical clarity and spirit make the comaparison so stark. Thank you so much, sir and madame I’m proud to stand with you!
Anything short of a full on single payer system was bound to be a kludge, at best, but some kludges are passable and others just leave a greasy smear on your shoe. The Senate health care bill was of the latter variety.
Following up on the prematurely announced news that Pelosi has the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill, which (as Jane points out in her comment @ 78) they pulled back, I’d like to make a prediction re HCR:
Obama is going to make a big push for HCR tonight. “Do it because the American people need us to act,” he’ll say. In the next couple of days, Pelosi’s office will announce that they’ve come up with a fix and that now have the votes in the House. And Obama will be declared a hero.
Jane has a nature that drives her to fight and to keep fighting. I like that. But the scenario I present seems increasingly likely, and we should be ready for it.
Of the latter variety, indeed! They had a set of decent (not great, but decent) ideas that would have been real reform and would have made a big difference for the next 20 to 30 years. Instead, they seem determined to go with the option that can actually make matters worse. As Jon says, it’s insane.
The mandate does have to go, but I’m increasingly getting the impression that it’s not dead yet. I had thought that a piecemeal approach was the last best option to avoid a truly big mistake. It’s not looking like the leadership is going to let that happen, though. (Sorry that I’ve been sounding so pessimistic in the last few days.)
Thats right Jane health care reform is dead and you help kill it. It didn’t meet your standards it didn’t have what you wanted a public option so you said kill it. You are selfish and short sighted.
Actually, if it’s something like the Senate bill that you want so much, I’d say you’re going to get it soon enough. Be sure to thank all the sellouts among the House Democrats and especially among the Senate Democrats for it.
Most Americans realize that it’s a bad joke on the American people, however, and come next Nov will be blaming the Democrats for having created a mess rather than solving big problems in our health care system.
I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this. It’s vital to support the handful of politicians in Washington that are actually protecting the publics general welfare.