Russ Feingold, Al Franken, Bernie Sanders...

[CTLawGuy]

Ted Kaufman, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, Byron Dorgan ... any ONE of these progressive senators could have singlehandedly killed the HCR, and effectively ensured that nothing passed.

Assuming, for purposes of this OP, that the HCR bill is a "corporate giveaway" and "worse than doing nothing",

- why didn't any of these progressive senators (and possibly others I left off the list) kill off the horrible bill singelhandedly?
- and are you upset with any of them for NOT intervening to kill the bill?

[vaberella]

1. Possibly but Feingold was really the only one teettering.

The other ones are fully aware of what is done in regards to any bill.

On another point, several people are upset that these politicians didn't stand up for what's right. Sadly, they forget we have lots of DLCers who would rather lie in bed with the Republicans than to help people.

[stray cat]

2. We have people who elect those senators and states agree more with them than DU

[vaberella]

18. True enough. That's why we have freaks like Bachmann and Virginia Foxx. n/t

[DCBob]

3. They were simply being pragmatic.. as they should have in that situation.

I dont think any of them thought it was "worse than doing nothing".

[CTLawGuy]

4. well THEY didn't think that it was "worse than nothing"

I'm curious to know what the people who DO think that, think about the (in)actions of such senators.

[zipplewrath]

5. Fair question

Senators, congressmen, these are people who have chosen to "play the game". They believe, in some sense, of living to "fight another day". There was some low hanging fruit in the bill, and in the end their choice was getting nothing, or grabbing the low hanging fruit and presuming they'd get another chance some day.

Do I think they were wrong? Yes. I don't think they'll get another chance. But you can understand that they weren't in any leadership position. The White House was. The leadership in the House and Senate were. Those were the people in a position to make changes. The rest of these peoples position is going to understandably be that they want to continue to play the game, to fight another day. The leadership, and the White House, can't make that same claim. They know, right now, today, that they have no intention of ever revisiting this issue. Reid, Pelosi, Obama, Rahm, etc, they'll all be long gone before it ever gets revisited. Franken, the newest of them, believes he'll "get another crack" some day. He's probably the only one who will, if anyone does. But by then he'll probably be in the minority.

[Demeter]

6. I'm thinking blackmail

Sorry, but nothing else would justify it. And that's how the modern DC works. Either that, or threats of physical force, which is ALSO how the modern US government works. It is disgusting, but there's no point in denying it.

[dionysus]

7. so rahm sent his boys to threaten to kick their asses or kill them?

:rofl:

"there's no point in denying it"

just when you think you've seen it all...

[Tarheel_Dem]

11. But they're all big boys & girls, right? Where's that liberal "backbone" that we're

relentlessly told the president lacks? I guess even DU heroes are only human. <sigh>

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. Or perhaps they didn't think that the bill was a bad one

[Drunken Irishman]

19. That's too reasonable of assessment. Sorry, but that doesn't belong on DU.

[RBInMaine]

8. For some here, even Sanders and S. Brown are not progressive enough. Hopeless.

[JoePhilly]

9. Because their job is to help us move forward ....

and not endlessly scream "why aren't we there yet!!!!"

[dragonlady]

17. Yes

These bills they are passing aren't all we'd wish, but they take chunks out of the power of the corporate power structure. Next time around the opposition will be weaker and more can be accomplished.

[still_one]

10. It isn't that simple. Those individual's ideas were NOT incorporated in the HCR

They were essentially told it is either this or nothing

The administration NEVER wanted a public option, or even lowering the Medicare age down to 55. This legislation WAS written by special interests

Is it worse than what we have today? We will see in the course of time, however, some people will get benefits and some people will lose some.

That some of the significant items regarding HCR don't kick in for several years, and those items would help a lot of people now makes one quite skeptical of the whole "deal"

[treestar]

16. Why didn't the House and Senate still pass a bill with the public option

and Medicare to age 55? If they had done that and the President vetoed it due to those provisions, then you could say he "didn't want" those things.

[still_one]

20. I believe the administration told both the leaders of the Senate and the House what they wanted

and they followed that agenda which didn't include a public option.

[griffi94]

13. you could ask the same question about the IWR

the reason imo is because they were more afraid of the political fallout of being branded as doing nothing than of supporting a bill they knew to be not very good.

if it wasn't intended to be a corporate giveaway how do you explain rhams statement about securing the private delivery system, and obamas appointment of liz fowley (a former wellpoint exec) to implement it.

[cali]

21. you could but that would be silly

over half the dems in the House and nearly half the dems in the Senate voted against the IWR.

[JoeyT]

14. Not being an authoritarian

I don't endlessly fawn over anyone and demand others accept what they do uncritically.
So yeah, they should have voted against it, and it was wrong of them not to.

Course it probably helped that there was plenty of arm twisting to go around when it came for forcing progressives into line. Guess they had plenty saved up from not bothering to use it on Lieberman or the Blue Dogs.

[cali]

22. your opinion is not fact. just so you know.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. Why didn't they kill the bill off singlehandedly?

Because they were GOOD DEMOCRATS. The BAD DEMOCRATS, the Blue Dogs were the ones who were rewarded and catered to for their obstreperousness.

And even though I am one of the most vociferous critics of the healthcare (oops!) insurance reform, I am having a little trouble with the second part of your question. That is because, as ultimately miserable and disappointing as it is, I cannot really say that it is "better than nothing" although it is damn close. That it is a corporate giveaway doesn't appear to be a debatable point with anyone. The fact that a generational call and demand for real reform was met with this pitiable imitation is just a shame.

I do think the good guy Progressive Senators went ahead and hung in once the handwriting was on the wall that we were getting the reform we were allowed to have by the big boys. They are, after all Good Democrats. The White House was cynically manipulating behind the scenes to dismantle some great add-ons, like the Dorgan amendment - in order to preserve their deal with Pharma that saved US taxpayers LESS than the Dorgan amendment. I personally wouldn't have blamed Dorgan one bit if he had gone publicly ballistic and called BS on the White House and refused to vote for the bill. It was shortly after that that he announced he wouldn't be running again. He's written one good book already, I hope he writes a blistering tell-all in the future about the corruption of our Democratic processes. I hope he reappears at a later time, perhaps to run for the Presidency on a citizens before corporations platform.


Feingold appears to have learned a lesson from healthcare, the evidence being his vote against fake financial reform. I think there is very little real reform in that bill and many major commentators agree. Yes, we might get a nice Consumer commission out of it, but that will all be based on whose at the head of it under what administration. We had a Wage and Labor Division of the Justice Department under Bush that was dormant - that's the point I am making. As Reich has pointed out a number of times, regulators already have a long history of not regulating.

Apart from the Senators, I think the larger power and more effective stumbling block against crappy health reform could have been the Congressional Progressive Caucus - they are the largest Caucus in the Congress and I am very sorry that they didn't raise a stink about all the compromises and the dropping of the Public Option and the Stupak amendment et al. They were a big disappointment.

I would encourage ALL of our legislators to vote their principle and conscience. Someday we might actually get legislation worth having rather than watered down crappy compromise that accomplishes little or nothing but an appearance of having done something.


****************************
edit because I made an incorrect statement which I deleted.

[dflprincess]

23. Actually, Franken's position on healthcare was never especially progressive

- at least while he was a candidate - it was the reason I supported someone else for endorsement in 2008.

Overall, Franken has turned out better than a lot of us thought he would & he has accomplished more in the last year than our other senator, Amy Klobuchar, has in 3-1/2 but his position on healthcare stank and I received some responses from his office about this bill that were every bit as bad as Klobuchar's.

I doubt Sanders would have supported the bill if he had not gotten the funding for community health clinics into it and that may be what tipped some of the others - that and the general attitude that politics is just a game and they all seemed to think a "win" was more important than any actual reform.

In the long run, I think there will be those who will figure out they were wrong to support another corporate giveaway. Especially in a few years when it becomes apparent that this bill changed nothing and the we'll be right back to square one as the number of uninsured begins to grow again as we continue to pay more and more for "coverage" and get less and less.

[JVS]

24. Maybe they wanted to be able to shower without Rahm accosting them.