> Re: [lbo-talk] Dean: House won't pass Healthcare without a Public Option
Quoting Brother of Howard Dean:
"Let's be clear: A Healthcare bill without a public option is D.O.A. in the House. Period.
To pass any bill in the House they need at least 218 votes but 64 House Democrats have stood up and said they will not vote for a bill without a public option. That means a bill without a public option would only have 193 votes."
No....that means simply that Emanuel and Company only have to flip 19 "progressive" Democrats in order for them to force the crappy Obama/Romney/McCainCare plan of the Senate into law. A few threats to pull local pork funding, combined with funding "centrist" opponents to their reelection campaigns (like what they did to Cynthia McKinney in '06), should do the trick nicely.
Or...they can just stand on their hands, allow the "progressives" to vote their bill down, and unleash the wrath of the media to blame "the Left" for the faillure to pass "meaningful health care reform"...and then rush themselves to the Right to pass what they really wanted in the first place: more bailouts for the insurance industry without the shackles of "universality" or "government mandates". As in, force everyone to buy crappy health insurance dominanted by the Big Guys, with a nominal "co-op" option funded by real cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
And of course, even that nominal crumb will be whisked away in the inevitable Republican Right revival come 2012, or even 2010, to be replaced by the New Reaganism/Palinism.
Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Democrats. AGAIN.
Anthony