To Progressives: What Now?

We lost this one. Unless the Senate uses reconciliation to strengthen the current Senate version of the HCR bill, the bill will pass with an individual mandate but no public option. All progressives will agree this constitutes a betrayal of the initial contract that won progressives’ support for an insurance industry-based plan. Those who argued for a stronger starting negotiating position have been vindicated and can tell those who didn’t “I told you so.”

Now that we’ve got that behind us, let’s focus on a constructive answer to, “What now?” I see two options: work to kill the Senate healthcare bill and work to move the center of the Senate majority left, or just work to move the Senate majority left.

To get no healthcare bill at all is the gift most wanted by the Republicans, and is more damaging to our interests than even this travesty Obama and Reid have managed. So killing the bill outright is a non-starter for me.

I personally have yet to see a way to kill the Senate healthcare bill and replace it with something that doesn’t violate the mandate-for-a-public-option contract at this late date, but if someone more imaginative than me can figure it out, I’m all ears.

Obama has shown he’s not real interested what’s in the bill as long as something called a healthcare bill passes. He and Rahm seem to have concluded they don’t need to heed the cry of their base, so I’m at a loss as to how we get through to them in time for this legislation.

Reid has shown he’s not going to risk defeat of the legislation over the public option if Obama doesn’t care, so all these dreams of getting it through leadership threats of reconciliation are just fantasies.

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