http://trueslant.com/sahilkapur/2010/03/13/did-democrats-ever-support-the-public-option/

Did Democrats ever support the public option?

by SAHIL KAPUR


The public option’s death has been officially announced. The trajectory of this debate has become one of the strangest political sequences I’ve seen (and I’ve been follow health care obsessively for about a year now). The pieces just don’t fit. The Democratic Party’s rhetoric doesn’t match its actions.

Democrats had us believe they wanted the provision when they had 60 senate votes, but just didn’t want to “go there” with reconciliation. But now they have to, and as Ryan Grim points out, enough Democrats have gone on record declaring their support for it, making it “a matter of will, not votes.”

Yet they’re not even holding a vote on it. What’s the harm? You put forth an amendment, get them all to go on record, and if it has the votes you move forward with it; if it fails, so what? Move forward with the rest of it. It seems that the only conceivable explanation for refusing to hold a vote is that Democratic leaders don’t want it. It’s becoming clearer that its death has nothing to do with Republicans.

Ezra Klein notes one benefit to Democrats if they get this done:

But the proper way to decide this is with a vote. Sen. Bernard Sanders has promised to bring the public option up in an amendment to the reconciliation package. Good. And if it passes, then Republicans can take a good, long look in the mirror and ask themselves if forcing the Democrats to use a reconciliation strategy rather than compromising to make the bill friendlier to conservative insights was really such a good idea. I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world if relentless obstruction imposed policy costs on Republicans.

More important is the fact that 60 percent of the general public wants a public plan. It’s an overriding priority for progressives and would enormously galvanize the Democratic base, making November considerably easier on them.

But Ezra is right; this would also be a powerful political message to send to Republicans: We tried like hell to compromise for 60 votes, you completely refused to play ball, so now we passed a more progressive bill under reconciliation. Suck it up.

Also, Sanders isn’t a Democrat so it’s telling that he’s the one senator even considering bringing it up for a vote.

Still growing.

Grayson's Medicare for All, H.R. 4789, now has 74 co-sponsors:


Rep Baldwin, Tammy - 3/16/2010
Rep Berkley, Shelley - 3/11/2010
Rep Brown, Corrine - 3/11/2010
Rep Capuano, Michael E. - 3/16/2010
Rep Carson, Andre - 3/16/2010
Rep Chu, Judy - 3/16/2010
Rep Clarke, Yvette D. - 3/16/2010
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy - 3/16/2010
Rep Cleaver, Emanuel - 3/16/2010
Rep Cohen, Steve - 3/16/2010
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. - 3/11/2010
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. - 3/11/2010
Rep Davis, Danny K. - 3/11/2010
Rep DeGette, Diana - 3/16/2010
Rep Doyle, Michael F. - 3/16/2010
Rep Edwards, Donna F. - 3/9/2010
Rep Ellison, Keith - 3/11/2010
Rep Engel, Eliot L. - 3/16/2010
Rep Farr, Sam - 3/16/2010
Rep Filner, Bob - 3/9/2010
Rep Frank, Barney - 3/9/2010
Rep Fudge, Marcia L. - 3/11/2010
Rep Garamendi, John - 3/16/2010
Rep Green, Al - 3/11/2010
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. - 3/11/2010
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. - 3/11/2010
Rep Hall, John J. - 3/11/2010
Rep Hare, Phil - 3/11/2010
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. - 3/11/2010
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. - 3/11/2010
Rep Hirono, Mazie K. - 3/16/2010
Rep Holt, Rush D. - 3/11/2010
Rep Honda, Michael M. - 3/16/2010
Rep Israel, Steve - 3/16/2010
Rep Jackson Lee, Sheila - 3/9/2010
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. - 3/11/2010
Rep Johnson, Eddie Bernice - 3/11/2010
Rep Johnson, Henry C. "Hank," Jr. - 3/11/2010
Rep Kaptur, Marcy - 3/11/2010
Rep Kennedy, Patrick J. - 3/11/2010
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. - 3/16/2010
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. - 3/9/2010
Rep Lee, Barbara - 3/11/2010
Rep Lewis, John - 3/11/2010
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. - 3/11/2010
Rep McDermott, Jim - 3/11/2010
Rep McGovern, James P. - 3/11/2010
Rep Meeks, Gregory W. - 3/11/2010
Rep Moran, Jerry - 3/16/2010
Rep Nadler, Jerrold - 3/11/2010
Rep Napolitano, Grace F. - 3/11/2010
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes - 3/16/2010
Rep Olver, John W. - 3/11/2010
Rep Payne, Donald M. - 3/16/2010
Rep Pierluisi, Pedro R. - 3/11/2010
Rep Pingree, Chellie - 3/9/2010
Rep Polis, Jared - 3/9/2010
Rep Rangel, Charles B. - 3/11/2010
Rep Rush, Bobby L. - 3/16/2010
Rep Sablan, Gregorio - 3/11/2010
Rep Sanchez, Loretta - 3/11/2010
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. - 3/9/2010
Rep Shea-Porter, Carol - 3/9/2010
Rep Speier, Jackie - 3/16/2010
Rep Sutton, Betty - 3/11/2010
Rep Thompson, Bennie G. - 3/16/2010
Rep Tonko, Paul D. - 3/16/2010
Rep Towns, Edolphus - 3/11/2010
Rep Velazquez, Nydia M. - 3/11/2010
Rep Waters, Maxine - 3/11/2010
Rep Watson, Diane E. - 3/9/2010
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. - 3/11/2010
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. - 3/11/2010
Rep Wu, David - 3/11/2010

Good quote about some important items in ref to this out of control spending and handouts everyone seems to think is a right now:::::::


We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our selection between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat in our drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labors and in our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people.. must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live.. We have not time to think, no means of calling the mis-managers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow suffers. Our landholders, too...retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must...be contented with penury, obscurity and exile.. private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance.

This is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." Thomas Jefferson

Wonder where Ronald Reagan would stand on the public option. Was it not he who said that government wasn't the solution, it was the problem? Were he alive today, St. Ronnie would agree with some here that health care in the U.S. should remain every man, woman and invalid for himself.