WENDELL POTTER: I would vote for it. (The health care bill)

[CreekDog]

BILL MOYERS: So I hear Wendell Potter saying that if he were in the Senate or the House, he would vote for this reform?

WENDELL POTTER: I would vote for it. I was distraught when I saw what happened, what I saw the Senate voting on. But then I realized, you know, I studied a lot of these efforts over the past many years to get reform. And often we've come short because we've tried to get the perfect, and we've never been able to get anything as a consequence. So I fear that we may be--

BILL MOYERS: Not since Medicare, right?

WENDELL POTTER: Not since Medicare.

BILL MOYERS: But I remember, Wendell, I remember President Johnson saying, "Well, let's get this bill. It's a flawed bill, 1965, passed. And other Congresses and presidents will come along and improve it over the next several years." That never happened.

WENDELL POTTER: But there have been some improvements. People who are on dialysis, for example, they can you know, they now are qualified for the Medicare program. That's an improvement. And people with disabilities are eligible for Medicare. So, it can change. And who knows? Maybe in the years to come, there can be other substantial changes to Medicare and Medicaid, that will be beneficial to all of us. But yes, this is important. We need to have a foundation. And this may seem to be not an adequate foundation for a lot of people, but there are more than 50 million people in this country who don't have insurance. I don't want to go back and tell them, "I'm sorry. We just couldn't get a good enough bill. So you're going to have to wait to who knows when. Maybe you won't live long enough." 45 thousand people, Bill, die every year because they don't have health insurance coverage. And that's recent. In years to come, that will increase. People can't wait any longer.

==========================

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03052010/transcript5.html

[csziggy]

1. K&R

[napi21]

2. If you missed watching Bill Moyer's Show, you can watch it at this link.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1433095754

It's well worth your time!

[bluestateguy]

3. We have to start somewhere

No bill (even single payer) was going to be the be all end all. I would have liked for things to have unfolded differently, and Obama can be faulted for clumsy salesmanship, and Baucus can be faulted for frittering away precious time. But if it's this bill or nothing, we have to go with this bill and keep on fighting. There is no "start over", because that is code for do nothing.

[CreekDog]

4. that's where I am on this

:hi: