Rational Optimism on Health Care Reform

Doug at Down with Tyranny thinks a decent health care reform bill with a public option has a good chance of getting to Obama's desk, and no, I don't think he's kidding. His scenario actually sounds more realistic than too good to be true.

Right now it looks really, really bad, but I'm going to play the role of Pollyanna here and say it's going to be okay. And I don't mean that the bill that gets Lieberman's vote (which will necessarily be a totally useless kiss-up to the insurance industry) is going to make life better for Americans, and we'll improve it later, and so on and so forth. I just saw Tom Harkin and Ron Wyden on MSNBC saying how much good that bill would do, and I'm convinced they're faking it. What I mean is that the bill that goes to conference will never be seen again; they're going to disappear it.

Is it your belief that they've really caved? I'm saying they've decided to make nice so they get the 60 votes on something, anything, then rewrite it in committee until it's a victory for Chuck Schumer, Tom Harkin, Ron Wyden, Jay Rockefeller and the rest of the relatively progressive voices. Don't y'all get why the insurance industry has been going all out to prevent 60 votes on even a sack of garbage? It’s because they know what can happen when it gets to conference. It's totally out of corporate control at that point, because the conferees are the action-oriented people in both chambers. And they're people who aren't all about getting attention and being windbags. They're all about something else: ordering people around and winning. Being in charge. I think we can relax a little now, because they seem to be confident they've got the 60 votes.

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But I think this will end soon, with a bill going into conference. This thing is rolling, it has a momentum all its own. They're acting as though they'll do just about anything to get to the conference, so I'm assuming they actually will. I don't care how many Vermonters say that progressives should vote no in the Senate, it ain't going to happen.

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When it goes into conference, that’s the time for all of us to make noise. When it comes out of the conference committee, the corporate last stand is a filibuster that must fail. That's the time for all of us to bring the heat.

He makes a strong case. Read the whole thing.