2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Enough of the bull$hit. It's not that HRC and cronies think Bernie can't get single payer passed [View all]Amimnoch
(4,558 posts)Would you at least agree that President Obama, when he was pushing the ACA in 2009 pushed VERY hard for the Government option? He first tired to get single payer, but that died long before the first draft of the bill was introduced.. it just did NOT have the votes. Right to the end he fought for the government option to be put in. The reality was, with a government option, he was not going to get an ACA. President Obama, in 2009 had a MUCH more sympathetic congress to work with than any potential version of the 115th congress coming up next year.
Fast forward to 2016. The current congress isn't only anti-single payer, but how many times have they passed bills to repeal the ACA as it is?? The ONLY thing stopping them is President Obama's veto.
Fast Forward to the end of this year. Give me any potential roll call vote post election of the 115th congress. I give you full freedom with this. Take every senate seat and every house seat that is up for election in the 115th cycle. Assume every republican running.. incumbent or not.. is defeated. In every Democratic Primary, take the most liberal/Progressive candidate running... even the ones that are polling under 10%.. I'll give it to you as an assumed win for this exercise. Show me a roll call where any version of the upcoming congress will pass a single payer pushed by Senator Sanders.
I even offer my own spreadsheet that has all of the election candidates for both listed (hit me with a PM with your email and I'll gladly send it).
Having a best friend from high school who is broke, and at the mercy of the system and on the ACA now. Taking care of my mother who is dependent on medicare. If I thought for one second that Senator Sanders had a snowballs chance in hell of making it happen, and Hillary Clinton was only not championing the same because of the vicious attacks lobbed against her then Senator Sanders would 100% have my vote.
Getting a man like Senator Sanders elected president isn't going to change this reality.. we need a LOT more like him in the Senate and house first.
I don't speak for Hillary, nor to I speak for (or always agree with) the other Hillary supporters here, but for myself.. NO, I gain neither wealth nor benefit from the current system. It is broken. Universally available health care for all IS the right thing to do. Bernie Sanders is not going to get it done with the upcoming congress this country is going to give him. I know this is where we will fundamentally disagree but I do, wholeheartedly believe, that if there was a possible congress to make this work, then Hillary would be calling for the same thing.
The only difference between Hillary and Sanders (IMO), is that Hillary isn't lying about what she'll be able to pull of as President.