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In reply to the discussion: Serious questions for those who are convinced that Obama, Clinton, and Gore are not liberals. [View all]Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)which is what Obama does and what the Dems have been doing for thirty years.
For example, we were told that single-payer was off the table because the Republicanites and the Blue Dogs would not accept it. Yet by not starting with that, we ended up with what was essentially a Heritage Foundation program (which the R's put on a show of opposing for their followers) with no public option. Furthermore, although the Progressive Caucus outnumbers the Blue Dogs, the Blue Dogs were pampered and catered too and the Progressives forced to submit to them. We were told that single payer and public option were impossible because the insurance companies would not accept them. Helloooo, companies are supposed to be subject to the laws of the land, not to dictate them.
That the Dems met with the insurance companies to see what they would accept is absurd: it's literally like something out of the old British political satire series Yes, Prime Minister.
Compromise means starting with more than you think you can get and ending up with something close to what you really want.
Obama was just off an election campaign that attracted the most enthusiastic volunteers I've seen since the days of McGovern. If he had said, "I want you to go into your communities and campaign for single payer armed with these fact sheets and also to pressure your House and Senate members," many would have.
I have come to the conclusion that the Heritage Foundation/Romney plan was Obama's original intention, a corporate welfare program for the insurance companies with a few sweeteners to make the medicine go down.
I voted for him because he was somewhat better than Romney, but I do not trust him to do the right thing by ordinary Americans.