Nader Goes Buchananite (Re: [lbo-talk] Vote Nader/Camejo 2004!

[Jim Westrich]

I do not think "the left" screwed up at all. And your story contains and some
revisionist fiction.  The "single payer" people who had power (single payer
supporters in Congress--mostly Democrats) did support some compromise measures
(expanding Medicadid for the uninisured) that WOULD have passed with Clinton's
support(as I have said many times on this list).  You are right that Chaffee's
proposal would have passed as well and that the single-payer bloc was against
it; but why should that matter when they had a majority supporting Medicaid
expansion.  Clinton could have easily gotten the single payer support but chose
not to.

I generally agree that "moving the ball forward" is a good thing but promising
"access" to healthcare and driving up costs on ordinary Americans is not moving
anyone forward and not the ball either.  If anything, it is kicking the ball
over to the brightly lit "astroturf" field of the Republicans where the rich
and healthy play and everyone else can enjoy watching and hoping some day to
get on the field (if they can live that long).

Jim

Quoting Nathan Newman <nathanne at nathannewman.org>:


> Clinton screwed up in 1994, but so did the Left.  They left a whole range
> of partial health care plans on the table that could have been passed, and
> instead held out for everything, rather than collaborate on a compromise.
> It was a suicidal, stupid mistake.  I blame Clinton, but I also blame many
> single-payer advocates as well.  They made sure that the votes were so
> divided among different proposals that no majority could emerge for any
> compromise plan.
>
> Nathan Newman