How did "public option" galvanize elite lefty opinion?

[lwcon]

Follow the meme:

http://vastleft.blogspot.com/2009/11/star-chamber-for-progressive-policy.html

How did "public option" become the One True Rallying Point for progressive elites? It's simply too vague -- and it quickly became too blatantly a http://pnhp.org/blog/2009/07/20/bait-and-switch-how-the-%E2%80%9Cpublic-option%E2%80%9D-was-sold/">bait-and-switch relative to Hacker's vaunted plan -- for even a moderately discerning person to think it had much merit.

Yet the top bloggers and biggest activist groups committed themselves to promoting and defending it -- simultaneously, wholeheartedly, and resolutely. They wouldn't answer the most obvious of questions (like how many people would have access to it, and what the yardsticks were for the oft-repeated notion that it should and would be "strong" and "robust"). Nor would they write about the most exciting progressive actions on health-care reform, like doctors, nurses, and everyday citizens getting themselves arrested to promote single-payer.

How does something like this happen?

Please K&R if you'd like more DUers to read the linked post.

[LWolf]

1. k n r

[madfloridian]

2. You lost me when you called Chris Bowers part of the "star chamber"

I mean, come on now.

There are bloggers with access for sure, but Chris is the least of them who do.

[lwcon]

5. I've been rooting for Chris to prove to be the good guy I used to think he was

And his significant other, Natasha, is a very good blogger at Open Left, IMHO.

But he's waaaay past knee-deep in the "public option" horse-manure.

His 2007 quote cited here seems very consistent with the way things played out, and with the "Star Chamber" mentality:

http://vastleft.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-best-not-to-see-how-shit-sausage-is.html

And it's consistent with everything I've seen since I first tried to nudge him to promote "single-payer":
http://www.openleft.com/showComment.do?commentId=171125

At every turn, he's been a major ring-leader in getting people to support "public option" no matter how miserable, and no matter how many essential questions have gone unanswered.

Ultimately, I think our politics is far too much about personalities and not enough about policies.

I don't think we should consider any blogger or politician beyond reproach.

[madfloridian]

6. The single payer groups urged congress NOT to vote for the public option.

I think that harmed the cause a lot.

Seems to me you dismiss anyone who did not push for single payer.

That is not a good thing to do.

You do any cause more harm than good when you condemn good bloggers like Chris.

Your groups campaigned against the public option. Now you want to blame others for it.

[lwcon]

8. Is there a basis for any of this?

And was a "strong" or "robust" "public option" ever under consideration in Congress?

Even Chris has referred to the plans as "watered down," and he wrote a post where he seemed to acknowledge wrestling with whether the bill was worth supporting.

Are we just supposed to be good little authoritarian followers and let the "good" people decide what policies we should support, even as they dodge the most fundamental questions like how many Americans will have access to the plan?

[madfloridian]

3. Also could you find another reference than Kip Sullivan's article...

which has been posted here over and over and over.

[Firstzar]

7. Also.....

...unlike "public options" or "triggers," America actually has experience with a single-payer system: Medicare.

[Prometheuspan]

4. real progressives don't buy deals with the devil

"become the One True Rallying Point for >progressive elites<"

Oxymoron. Progressives; elites. There are no progressive elites, theres just a two party duoploy with a lot of very well fooled
pawns on two sides.

Elitism is what holds the country back, its what keeps everything stupid, its what keeps real solutions off the table, its what
keeps science out of politics, its what keeps these ignorant fools pretending that they have answers to our problems when they are just pretending and looking for another way to shaft the people.

The public option is just a scam to keep the insurance companies propped up. It isn't progressive, it isn't sensible, and its not real reform.

The obvious real reform is universal single payer, which would cost less than we now pay because right now most of the money goes to the insurance companies, not the doctors.

Cut out the middle men. They add nothing but their parasitism.

The problem is; the "Elites" are those parasites. Call them progressive or liberal all you like, but thats not what they are.