Reply #21: The outcome in the Senate is critical.

[Tom Rinaldo]

I know many progressives, myself included, are tempted to second guess some of the political decisions made by Democrats that brought us to this point. For me I think that is something we can return to later, right now too much hangs in the balence. If we get a real public option set up, even one like the Senate and/or House bills seem to now envision; a program that will provide services to tens of millions of Americans, we get something real we can start to build on. It's not what I hoped for, even as recently as a month ago, but it is a tangible something that can lead to further more sweeping changes.

I fear neither Congress nor the public will have the stamina and focus to attempt something this sweeping against so much resistance again, once Congress wraps up whatever reform package comes out of this year's effort, for a very long time to come. If we can't get a public option up and running now after all of this effort, I don't see the political I.O.U. called "a trigger" getting pulled for a generation. We will live with whatever private mandate system we are left with for many long years to come.

The insurance industry knows it, and that is why they are fighting so hard to kill it. They know too that if a public option is created, expanding on it from the opening it would give us would take far more money and effort for them to prevent than they are using to kill it before it is born. With far worse chances of them succeding. That's what is riding on the Senate.