(x-posted at ePluribus media)

Via The Hill, John Conyers hammers Obama's weak stance in the healthcare battle in a radio interview:

"I'm getting tired of saving Obama's can in the White House," Conyers said on the liberal Bill Press radio show. "He only won by five votes in the House, and this bill wasn't even anything to write home about."

"The only way he could have got it through was that progressives held their nose," Conyers added.

The veteran Michigan Democrat had teamed with Rep. Dennis Kucinich
(D-Ohio) to push single-payer options in the health reform bill, a
battle which Conyers said was far from over.

And on Rahm Emmanuel? Via the NY Times:

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Barney Frank has become something of a darling on the left because of his feistiness, which heaven knows is in short supply among Democratic politicians. That quality seems to work best for someone who will go down with the ship on principle, all other considerations be damned; someone like Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the House health care bill under just that circumstance. (Phoenix Woman brilliantly articulated the hazards of this outlook.*) It does not work so well with someone who appears to be at least half in the pocket of the interests he ostensibly oversees.

His interview with Ed Schultz earlier this week gave a clear illustration of why. Schultz pushed on a couple of key points: Last year's bailout came with no strings attached, and as a result the major players have gone back to the same reckless behavior. Frank turned prickly, which is what feisty looks like when you don't like it, and almost immediately said "don't condescend to me" when Schultz was obviously doing no such thing. He proceeded to condescend to Schultz throughout the interview; "the point I made to you several times" and "What's the matter with you?" stand out. There was also this:

SCHULTZ: Congressman, why can't you just admit that this was a serious misstep on the part of the Congress? You forked out billions of dollars to save the economy, I get all that, to get the structure back going again. But you didn't ask them questions about how this...

FRANK: No, Ed. You're wrong.

SCHULTZ: Oh, tell me I'm wrong.

FRANK: You're wrong. And I'd like to be able to explain it.

audio by title hoosiers for a commonsense health plan single payer now

Senator Bernie Sanders:

In my view, the real solution to the problem of how to reform health care in this country is a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. We are going to try to at least give states the option to go forward and move toward a single-payer system. Whether it’s Vermont or somewhere else, if one state pulls it off it will spread around the country.

Who knew? But it's nice to see it all put together:

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Because it’s not the best we can do. It mandates people purchase private insurance. It is a $70 billion giveaway to private insurance companies and locks in this system that’s the problem, not the solution.

John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich are correct, it isn't HR 676 and it's not as good as HR 676. It is however a very good compromise, and for all the incrementalists and political realists out there in TVland, it provides a good foundation to build on.

What it is is HR 676 with a chunk of HR 3200 added on at the end, some revenue provisions added, illegal aliens excluded, covered benefits slightly less generous, and the part about turning the hospitals and other institutions into non-profits removed.

Marcy Kaptur is on C-Span right now talking glowingly about the anti-women's rights addition to the Insurance Industry Protection Act.

Sigh.

Now somebody else [Christopher Smith] is up, talking about the huge number of babies who would have been killed and all the mothers who would have been wounded without the intervention of the brave right-to-life souls who got this amendment into the bill.

Eric Massa and Dennis Kucinich voted against the bill. Thank you.

Alan Grayson, John Conyers, and Anthony Weiner voted for the bill. Hard to blame them, as there are good things tucked into this bill among all the other stuff we could really have done without. Thanks, guys [not].

According to a post on Pennsylvania blog, House speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow a mere twenty minutes of debate on single-payer, albeit indirectly.

I saw this entry posted over at Docudharma and thought I'd share the link to it. I'll post as much as I can, but really, it's worth checking out the entire entry. It's by the user known as FreeSociety.

The total vacuum of any principled leadership from President Obama, has inevitably produced the most directionless, anti-consumer, Insurance Monopoly boondoggle fraud imaginable -- which is now masquerading before Congress as "reform".