Seriously. DU used to be a place for informed discussion.

[berni_mccoy]

I don't see any of that now with regard to the topic of HCR.

First of all, far too many here have demonstrated that they have no idea of what the Democrats in Congress are trying to do at the moment. Presently, the Democrats are trying to get enough votes in the Senate to support passing the Public Option via Reconciliation. This is because there are not enough votes in the House to pass the Senate version of the bill, which is a good thing. I have always been in favor of the House version which includes the Public Option. This is a bill that was created by and supported by the entire House Progressive Caucus (save one member). The original author is the chair of the education and labor committee, Rep. George Miller.

The Congressional Dems and President Obama have been making progress working toward an agreement, not just on the contents of the final bill, but on how it will be done. And that is Reconciliation. The creator of the Byrd Rule, Sen. Byrd, himself, supports this use of Reconciliation to pass the HCR Bill.

To do this, the House Democratic members must agree to pass the Senate version of the HCR Bill and then pass a set of amendments that returns most of the House Provisions to the bill. This bill must then be passed using Reconciliation in the Senate and currently, of last count I heard, they confirmed 38 votes to do this. They don't have enough yet.

When Rep. Kucinich, the lone member of the Progressive Caucus who voted against the House version of the bill, which includes The Public Option, he is jeopardizing necessary votes in the Senate that are needed to pass the House version of the bill via reconciliation. This is simply unacceptable and undermines the efforts of the party to pass the Public Option through the Senate.

This is what is so wrong with Denis Kucinich. He is willing to completely destroy progressive legislative work done by his very own caucus members on the grounds of Single-Payer-Or-Die philosophy. Yes, we'd all agree Single Payer is a good solution to the Health Care Crisis. But it's not the solution that will work. We're struggling to get 50 Democratic Senators to support the House version. NONE would support Single Payer. In fact, you couldn't even get single payer out of the House. Millions of Americans health and well-being are at stake here and Kucinich does not give a damn. This destructive behavior is no better than the angry Republican mobs of the summer. Yes, we get it. Single Payer. But what Kucinich and his followers don't get are the real life-or-death consequences of the outcome of the Progressive Effort to pass the Public Option through the Senate using Reconciliation.