(June 16, 2011 at 4:51 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: In his style of premature compromise, before even arriving at the negotiation table, he gave away single payer hoping, apparently, to score points with such a magnanimous concession. ...
Fair enough, but I'm of the persuasion that at least it's a start, which is more than any other president has been able to do. It wasn't like the majorities he had were overly advantageous since he couldn't even get support from some in his own party (the Blue Dogs) for some or all of the provisions you mention.
(June 16, 2011 at 4:51 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: At the end of the day, he took the massive majorities we gave him, squandered it all on his pursuit of "bipartisanship" and threw us under the bus in the process.
I think he went into office a little to naive about how hard it would be to get anything done with all the Reps and some moderate Dems working against him at every turn, and about the premature compromise stuff, he knew full well that because of the Blue Dogs and the Reps, he wouldn't be able to get the public option and the single payer stuff in there. It just wasn't going to happen. So while I'm not satisfied with the bill that we were left with, it's a start. To go from the current health care system, of which most of Washington's leaders benefit from kick backs and contributions from the industry, to something resembling that of the UK or the Netherlands in one president's term is putting the cart before the horse, I'm afraid. It simply wasn't a realistic expectation in my view.
Our Daily Train blog at jeremystyron.com
---
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
---
---
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
---
