OK, the battle is over. We didn't get a public option, and we're going to be stuck with a hideous abortion amendment. We did get a much better bill than we would have if we hadn't been willing to walk away, however -- the re-inclusion of the Wyden exchange voucher amendment will strengthen things considerably.
I don't think that the compromises are so bad that the bill isn't acceptable -- I think I can live with it, but I want to hear what other people have to say. What I want to focus on is "what now?"
First, realize that an incomplete win is, in a certain sense, better than a complete win. It gives you something to improve, and that's important. If you want better democrats elected and re-elected, you need to have a reason for them to be elected; solve a problem completely, and the reason goes away. Gratitiude is not a good reason to elect someone who's become deadweight.
So, let's assume that this outline is basically what we're going to get. How can we incrementally improve it over the next few years so that it gets better? I have some ideas.
UPDATED to fix typos.
Here's a proposed list of "new progressive legislative priorities for health care".
(1) Raise the disbursement ratio. "90% across the board!" should be our rallying cry: protect individuals, and reduce the huge amount of money that insurance companies waste on their own bloated executive compensation packages.
(2) Reform drug prices. The President and his staff may owe PhRMA something, but we sure don't. We can, and should, continue to press this issue.
(3) Strengthen the negotiating positions of the Exchanges -- unify them as much as possible, and start mandating that they include state government employees. OK, we're not going to get a reasonably efficient public component; let's make the non-public component stronger.
I'm sloganeering here. I'm not saying that this is the best possible bill, as I don't think it is. I'm saying that there may be ways to drive towards a solution to the problems that this bill doesn't help with.