Health Care Reform - No Bill is Better Than a Bad One

Commentary By Ron Beasley

I have thought all along that no health reform would be better than watered down reform that really doesn't fix anything.  The minimum requirement would be a strong public option.  It appears that the House Progressive Caucus agrees.  Representative Lynn Woolsey spells out what it will take to get the 80 votes of the Caucus in a post over at The Huffington Post - in short a "robust public option."

In an interview with Ezra Klein Woolsey explains where the caucus has drawn the line.

The Progressive Caucus would prefer a single-payer system -- 99.9 percent of the 80 members have said they would vote for a single-payer system before anything else. Therefore you have to know what we're looking for, bottom line, is a robust public option that could get us to single payer in the future.

What that means is a public option that's equal to anything anyone else is offering and gets the same level of support as the insurance options and that allows every American to choose that public option if they prefer it.

So what we have shaping up is a battle between the blue dogs and the progressives.

The theory in health-care reform has been, thus far, that Democrats need to worry about votes on their right flank. But California Rep. Lynn Woolsey, chair of the 80-member House Progressive Caucus, has been arguing the opposite: that Democrats need to worry about their left flank. The majority of her caucus, she says, will vote against a bill that doesn't include a robust public option. That's not been their approach to legislation in the past. But as ardent single-payer supporters, they feel they've compromised enough.

A majority of Americans want major reform.  The horror stories about socialized medicine are not sticking this time in part because those horrors are what many are experiencing with the private plans.  The pressure to do something will be even greater before the 2010 elections so there is no need to accept bad reform this year.  The blue dogs and even the Republicans will be feeling the heat next year.

Let them know you support them and appreciate their efforts.