Oh, I'll admit that in public. The bill signed into law by the president does not make government the single payer for all health care. Nor does the bill make all providers government employees as you'd find in England.
Thank you, my friend!!
Now will you admit that the only reason we have EuropeanCare Lite is that you didn't have enough votes in congress for the real thing.
I can't do this. I have never, ever supported the real thing, and have been very open about that here. The real thing regarding European care has its good points but ultimately leads to rationing, waiting lines and less off people paying for the health care of the wealthiest people.
So "I" had actually had plenty of votes in Congress for what I wanted. Same with Obama, Biden, Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, John Spratt, Brad Ellsworth of your state, etc. You are making my point here- European socialism is hardly the desire of this Democratic Congress. Obama is not settling for this because he did not get Sweden's system. Remember, Obama's original plan said nothing of the public option, never mind Euro care, at least half of house Democrats were relieved the P.O. was gone, and the Senate NEVER had much use for it!
And will you admit that the 60 members of the Progressive Caucus in the House (including Dennis Kucinich) that pledged in a letter that they would not support a bill without a "robust public option," were persuaded to do just that with the understanding this bill is but a "foot in the door." A point repeated by liberals all this week on TV and even here in FYM.
Sure, I'll admit that insofar as they were persuaded to drop the public option as a condition for their support of the bill. However, do not confuse the public option(which I never supported either and have been very open about here) with European care. It would have been administered by the government, but no one would be required to use it, it would have been self financed by consumer premiums, not a compulsory health care payroll tax. The minimum standard of care would have required that the plan cover many procedures that are routinely the cause of waiting lists in Europe. The list goes on.
I really do not think the "foot in the door" rhetoric is any more than window dressing and red meat. The essential points of reform are there and as time goes on, it will become clear that this bill accomplishes them without a public option.
While they may say that they got assurances to pursue in the future a public option, etc there was no quid pro quo of any kind. The news has to give us the PG version, of course, but ultimately, these people were dragged into a room by Rahm Emmanuel, told to stop being little babies, told to stop making the perfect the enemy of the good, stop subjecting everything to a ridgid ideological test, and told that they were fuc**n dead to the White House not to mention on the wrong side of history if they opposed coverage for 32 million, increased competition, lower costs and an end to arbitrary b.s. insurance company practices.
Indy, I will give you everything I own if a public option even comes up again in the next few years, never mind gets passed. Anything even remotely like Europe will not happen ever, period. Our political culture in the US is way too deeply ingrained, and that is fine by me.
The Congressional Progressive caucus 60 as a whole objected to the lack of a public option. Of those 60, I highly doubt that any more than Kucinich plus 8 or 9 are hard core single payer advocates. Single payer, not the public option, is the European test.
The bottom line is 60 nowhere near makes up a majority of Democratic congresspeople, it would be like saying the Republican Liberty Caucus speaks for the Republicans on issues like drugs and terrorism.
A public option(which is ineffective, but nothing to worry about regarding European tendencies) did not even make it in a heavily Democratic caucus, never mind single payer or European health care light. Your points about it being all over TV and FYM are well taken, but how much noise did progressives make in both places throughout 2009 about how the bill the President signed would absolutely have a robust public option? More wishful thinking than anything else.
Note to my Progressive forum friends: The public option, while not the danger that the right thinks it is, would have been completely ineffective at reducing costs with 1% of the market. We have regulations on health insurance companies now, they can't just do whatever they want, we have competition, we have made it easier for small business, all without a public option that would require a bunch of new gov't employees and administrators to run. Sounds good to me. This was never essential to reform.