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Today is my birthday and I just posted this on my blog:
I lost my U.S. Senate primary race to Barack Obama six years ago today. I remember because it was my birthday. I also remember something that our President, then state senator, said in a light moment during the campaign after I impersonated him and he shot back one of me, “All we need is courage and big bold ideas,” he said in his best high-pitched Skinner voice. He was right on with that as I repeated that mantra at every chance. I was pleased to hear him say it yesterday in Cleveland on his last- minute pitch to pass healthcare reform.
“I don’t know about the politics, but I know what’s the right thing to do,” he said, nearly shouting as the crowd cheered. “And so I’m calling on Congress to pass these reforms — and I’m going to sign them into law. I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing.”
Well, Mr. President, I have also believed that doing the right thing is good politics. President Obama and I both opposed the war in Iraq at a time when the polls were hugely in favor of the war. Look what happened. With time, the truth came out. The public slowly assimilated it, the polls completely flipped, and we are withdrawing all troops.
The moderate and conservative Dems should heed this experience. Get some spine and pass the bill. The truth will come out. People will be happy. The polls will change, and we can move on to make it better and better.
To the liberals in the party, I must say the same. I am strongly in favor of a public option, as you can see from untold TV food fight battles and my advocacy efforts. In fact, I first started talking about a public option during my Senate primary with Barack Obama in 2003. I didn’t call it that, I called it USA Choice for Healthcare, and described it as a government plan that will compete with the private sector to provide an affordable plan to Americans who could not find one in the private market. I was not a single-payer advocate because I knew that politically, a single-payer could never pass given that the vast majority of Americans were enrolled in an employer-based program. But, more importantly, the idea of “competition” was a keyword in GOP rhetoric. How could they win that spin battle?
They managed to twist “competition is a good thing” into “anything the government touches is a bad thing” and won the short-term rhetorical war. But they cannot win the battle.
Healthcare reform is too fundamental to our survival, as a nation, and as individuals. Americans know that. And just as they came around with Iraq, they will come around on healthcare. So listen up, liberals (and I don’t care which name you call me) but progressive means progress. Abolitionists didn’t tie their fate to women’s suffrage. They made progress with each movement.
The same is true with healthcare. You have to free Dennis Kucinich and the others who signed the pledge letter for the public option to do the right thing. It’s not perfect, no. But it’s traction. When people get used to having the government involved, even if for now it is to stop the worst abuses in insurance company behavior and end monopolistic premium increases, it is progress.
I believe that offering a public option in the next congress and the next one after that will get us closer to that goal. As people understand the cost structure, they will choose to have “government competition” over “repealing progress” and returning to the days where insurance companies are allowed to throw you off while you are sick and dying, when having a pre-existing condition means a very insecure future.
All or nothing is fine when we are playing poker with chips, not when it literally means life or death for untold thousands of Americans while we wait another decade to try it again.
Your exemplary efforts to push it this far and get it done deserves the highest of praise. I was with you in that. The other side says they will kill the bill at all costs. You can’t aid or abet that obstructionist behavior.
As President Obama said yesterday. Have the courage. Do the right thing. This week we can make more “progress” as progressives than anything we’ve done in literally decades.
It’s time to unite in the 11th hour and put something historic in the history books. Then let’s start writing the next chapter. Much work yet to be done.
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