| You'll hear lost of crowing about how health care is dead or how health care should be handled in DC, or what not. But with DC foundering, and the status quo completely untenable for millions of Californians, Sen. Mark Leno has continued to press for single payer health care here in California. Sure, we all know that the bill will be vetoed by the Governor, but there is a point besides just that.
We simply cannot assume that Massachusetts means something it doesn't. Or that there is just one story to be told. Barbara O'Connor makes this point:
"They shouldn't overblow the vote of Massachusetts because there were lots of variables there," she said. "It wasn't just health care that drove that election."
Instead, she said, it was disaffection from the left, which wanted President Barack Obama to seek a more aggressive public option to his health care reform, combined with the anger from independents, who wanted Obama to focus on jobs, that allowed Republicans to capture that seat.(CoCoTimes)
As we water down health care reform in DC, somebody has to carry the torch forward for real reform. This is the point of SB 810, to show that there is another choice, another system that we could build. If we completely drop single payer from our platform of ideas, we'll simply see the Republicans calling some more centrist idea crazy and unamerican.
We just can't win by giving in to the Republicans over and over and over again. Heck, as it is, it is increasingly hard to differentiate the Senate bill from McCain's health care plan from 2008. We need voices to press for the left, and if that means passing a bill that will be vetoed, then so be it. |
