Why don't people blame all dems for not starting negotiations w/ Medicare for all?

[LeftyAndProud60]

I was watching Maher, and he still blames Obama for not starting w/ Medicare for all. Well, he probably didn't because his conservative democratic friends in the senate would never pass it and told him so. Especially since Baucus, Lieberman and other are brought by insurance companies.

[Luminous Animal]

1. We are a proud big tent, after all. We are bound to accept everyone. Even Republcans.

[SpartanDem]

2. Why? No one ran on single payer

Obama outlined his healthcare plan before he got elected. Remember "if like your insurance you can keep it" so think he'd start from a different plan is just stupid.

[Vinca]

3. He also said he wouldn't sign a bill without a public option. Oh well.

[Badfish]

5. Since a PO couldn't pass the senate...

should we have dropped everything

[Honeycombe8]

12. No, he didn't. He never supported that. He put his hc plan on his campaign site....

it did NOT have a public option.

You may be confusing "universal coverage" with public option. That's what the right wingers would use to say he wanted "medicare for all." That was a lie. He had said he wanted "universal coverage," meaning his GOAL was for every American to have access to insurance coverage. His plan was a subsidy plan for low income people, and an expansion of Medicaid....pretty much like what was passed ultimately.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. Odd...

Obama Demands: The Bill I Sign Must Include Public Option
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/obama-demands-the-bill-i-sign-must-include-public-option.php

[Bluenorthwest]

4. He also opposed individual mandates. Soundly opposed them.

He said trying to solve the health care crisis by mandating the purchase of insurance is like trying to solve homelessness by passing a law to mandate that everybody has to buy a house. He said Hillary, who supported mandates, was coming after your paycheck.
So if your notion here is to suggest that he ran on what he pushed and passed you are miles away from accuracy. He said any bill he signs would contain a strong public option as well.

[Honeycombe8]

13. That was the main thing he reversed on, and he explained it. But he NEVER supported a public option

You are confusing "universal coverage" with "public option," I think. They are not the same thing. Except for the mandatory provision, the plan as passed was pretty close to the plan he'd put on his campaign site. His plan and Hillary Clinton's were almost identical. Her plan didn't have a public option, either.

No one who sat down and figured out a new health care plan included a public option, that I know of. Some of the other candidates talked about it, like Kucinich, but they didn't have formal plans on their campaign sites, I think.

[TheKentuckian]

15. Your assertion has been debunked out of the President's own mouth.

He regularly campaigned for a government program to act as a counter balance to the insurance companies.

You might argue semantics that he didn't use the phrase "public option" to evade the point but he campaigned for a government program before the election (and against taxing benefits and the mandate) as well as timidly for the public option after taking office.

[Vinca]

17. Thank you. He said it time and time again. But there's no use in arguing about it now.

We're victims of big insurance for the forseeable future.

[treestar]

8. +100

It's just silly the way people think the way to negotiate is to start from the most extreme position possible.

If you go to your local car dealer, why not offer him $500 for that 2011 Mercedes? It makes as much sense.

[Raine1967]

25. +1 -- I was told once to make a job offer.

I didn't ask for One million dollars.

[golfguru]

23. Obama during the campaign was against Hillary's mandates

for healthcare. Then he flip-flopped.

[harun]

26. Wouldn't have stopped a Medicare buy-in. They should still push

for the Medicare buy-in bill that Grayson introduced.

Why are so many here quick to support this behavior with "he didn't run on that". You do realize the only groups that benefit from such thinking are the for-profit insurers and the politicians taking their money, don't you?

[dionysus]

6. because it's easier to blame someone you don't like anyways...

[PassingFair]

7. Then why would he put Baucus IN CHARGE?

Obama was never going to fight for a public option,
although he campaigned on it's necessity.

Once the insurance companies (disingenuously) agreed
to take people with pre-existing conditions, he saw
THAT as victory enough and sold the crucial public
option (the NECESSARY component for REAL health care
reform and rate reductions) down the river.

[Hello_Kitty]

10. And dealing away everything that would have really contained costs.

The mandate and excise tax are the main cost containment mechanisms in the plan. Health care costs are going to skyrocket. What's left of the wealth of the middle class will continue to be passed to the health care industry unabated.

[Joe Bacon]

14. Precisely what will happen

Which is why I'm working for single payer in California with California One Care! Join us at http://www.californiaonecare.org because Single Payer is the only real solution to clean up the health care mess. Especially after the Supreme Court will throw out the ACA...

[Hippo_Tron]

20. The bill wasn't designed to contain costs, it was designed to expand coverage

Containing costs is something that will have to be re-visited, down the line because the insurance companies simply had too much leverage over congress.

Expanding coverage was also a battle that had to be fought and won, though. Up until the bill passed, the prevailing mentality in America was "my tax dollars shouldn't pay for your health care". The health care bill changed that and I think that's an important step in the right direction.

[treestar]

9. Why don't people hesitate to be judgmental about things they

know so little about?

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

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[MasonJar]

16. The problem is Obama didn't even try for it. Perhaps he agreed with

the right leaning dems. If so, he should admit it. If not, he should have put his power behind the attempt at least. My problem with Obama is that either he doesn't have strong ideals or he says he does but doesn't mean it. I expected him to be the person he ran as, a person working for change. He is not the person he ran as. If he had run as a conservative or a moderate, and as such had won, I'd not be complaining.

[Radical Activist]

24. He didn't run on Medicare for all.

He pushed what he ran on for months and it didn't pass the Senate. Blaming Obama instead of the people who are actually responsible (conservative Senate Democrats) is baffling to me.

[dionysus]

18. i've always asked that question. you'll get some vague answers on this.

[Radical Activist]

22. Because for some people its about finding any reason to attack Obama.

It's about Obama, not the issue.

Others have an authoritarian mindset which leads them to believe that its up to the President to make everything happen for them. For those people, it's not the fault of the Senate. It's the fault of Obama for not being the Senate's dictator.