This is not a game. People's lives are at stake. Put down the damn pom-poms.

[lwcon]

Glenn Greenwald:

The "public option" was something that was designed to excite and placate progressives (who gave up from the start on a single-payer approach)....

The death-by-spreadsheet parasites should be put out of business. Period. Nothing will "keep them honest." You know that, and I know that.

But the consensus of kewl kidz was to "give up from the start on a single-payer approach," so the only "reform" on the table is "public option."

It used to be that everyone was demanding a "strong public option" or a "robust public option." Increasingly, progressives are demanding "a public option" or "the public option."

A plan that covers only a small fraction of Americans (Obama says less than 5%), ain't strong and it ain't robust, and Big Insurance ain't afraid of it -- doesn't that tell you something?

Are our eyes on the prize? Are we paying any attention to what's in the plan, or are we just amusing ourselves yelling "go, team" for public-option, any public option, preparing to celebrate a Pyrrhic victory, if one is coming at all? People's lives and our economy hang in the balance.

All of you who rallied for "strong" and "robust," when it was the in thing, are you still demanding it? Or is "a" or "the" public option good enough for you now?

[pecwae]

1. Knr

Great article by Greenwald.

You probably already know the answers to the questions you posed. I keep seeing posts that claim any reform is a victory and a first start. I'm not convinced.

[slipslidingaway]

2. knr nt

[Skidmore]

3. It was not made to placate anyone but the members of the Finance Committee

to move the legislation out of committee and into reconciliation. Now let's get to work on all Congresscritters and Senators who we know to oppose a public option and work on those damned blue dogs while we are at it.

Can we stop the urge to collectively hyperventilate and get to work?

[lwcon]

5. "a public option"

Rah, rah, sis-boom-bah!

[Skidmore]

8. Your point being what, specifically.

[lwcon]

11. That cheering for *a* public option is to knowingly take a placebo

The powers that be want you to be demanding *a* public option, so you won't bother them for real health reform like virtually every other modern country has, and has had for years.

Time was, when the trendy thing to do was to demand a *strong* public option or a *robust* one. But that brought with it the wearying work of defining how a public option that the president brags will be used by less then 5% of Americans could possibly live up to those adjectives.

"Public option" was a bait-and-switch job, and to shill for *a* public option, without regard to how *strong* or *robust* it actually is, is to be a foot soldier for a fraud. Well-meaning, I don't doubt, but helping the Dems take a dive on health reform.

[lunatica]

4. My cynicism keeps being justified

So I guess I've become a Progressive realist and not just a cynic. When single payer went missing I did too. Yet I'm still a Progressive.

[lwcon]

7. Me, I prefer "liberal" n/t

[Orsino]

6. He's almost completely right.

Regulations with teeth could keep insurance companies close enough to honest--that's why we regulate anything, after all--though a toothless Congress is unlikely to rediscover this quaint principle.

[QC]

9. Some have had their pom poms surgically attached.

Putting them down will be a slow and painful process.

[Jakes Progress]

10. Where the administration should be worried

is the part where some of the wildest pom-pomers have started letting their frustration show. A few of our most stalwart fan bloggers and starry-eyed dreamers have begun voicing, ever so slightly, that they might be a little put out that the big three (health, war, economy) seem to be going south. Some are still in denial, but the administration should worry if they can't deliver on jobs, healthcare, and peace.

[lwcon]

14. I just don't see it

I think the left is made up of masochists.

[Jakes Progress]

17. Some of those in there.

And a lot of starry-eyed dreamers. Many of the zealots that worked with me during the election a year ago have begun showing signs of disgust. One has simply decided to take his family to live in another country. Even here on DU, a few of the pom-pom brigade post less often and even make a complaint every once in a while.

Me? I want him reelected simply because he better than the alternative. That's where his trouble lies. We won last year because of massive support from millions of dedicated believers. I've never had that many volunteers to work with. Of course it helped that the republicans ran two brain dead idiots. If republicans can avoid self immolation and nominate a blander puppet, we will need even more volunteers, more pom-pomers. Problem is that the administration is siphoning off those willing workers with the death of a thousand cuts.

I've been voting for lesser evils for a long time. I'm tired of it. Now if we had a real shot at an honest progressive, I'd be all over it.

[lwcon]

24. I guess I'm a tad more discouraged than you are

I wish I could agree with your sig, but in many ways this administration is more disempowering of liberals, since the ability to push from the left seems more blunted than ever.

[Echo In Light]

12. "Big Insurance ain't afraid of it."

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. K&R

[Vidar]

15. K&R

[Robyn66]

16. We really need to haunt the Blue Dogs about this

There needs to be a "code pink" for health care. I am not joking here, they could be called "code blue" which is perfect because it could stand for blue dogs and for a code blue medical emergency. They could show up and drive the blue dogs crazy!!

[lwcon]

18. The problem is, it isn't just the Blue Dogs

"We" threw the Blue Dogs and Repubs a big, juicy bone, when we let Obama, Baucus, and everyone else lie their asses off about an "open and transparent process" that "considered all options." They immediately took single-payer off the table and made a secret deal with Big Pharma.

Rallying around the wafty "public option" was a sucker move, and furthering the suckerishness is losing the narrative about a "strong" or "robust" public option. What ever happened to that? How is a public option that fewer than 5% of Americans will get going to be a legitimate challenge to Big Insurance? It isn't -- by design. It's not the Blue Dogs who are pushing that, it's everyone who's urging/allowing us to downgrade our objective not just to public option, but one that's being whipped and heralded without the slightest whiff of strength or robustness (or scrutiny thereof).

How dumb are we? Pretty damned dumb, I'd say.

[area51]

19. Lives are indeed at stake.

100,000 people die in the U.S. each year due to lack of healthcare.

Single-payer healthcare saves lives.

If our medical care delivery system, a fractured one with a patchwork of providers and huge loopholes where many people don't qualify for assistance is so good, why is no other country trying to emulate us?

[lwcon]

21. Yet the Dems are selling us a

"uniquely American" solution.

[frylock]

20. knr

[kenny blankenship]

22. By the end the suckers will be on their knees begging for the "trigger"

[lwcon]

23. LOLz! n/t

[Mythsaje]

25. I've said from the beginning that the problem was the total lack of negotiation...

That the Dems didn't bother asking for anything beyond the LEAST they thought we could get, when they should've been asking for the absolute most they could imagine. Ask for the moon, accept a nice tropical island somewhere. But every time I said this, people would go "Oh, call the Waambulance," or "you're just mad because you didn't get your pony."

It was ALWAYS a pile of bullshit. Nothing's changed. Bullshit.

[lwcon]

26. Bingo. n/t