As anyone who has been paying a modicum of attention to sensible people like Nate Silver ought to realize, the health care bill is not perfect, but it's not the son of the devil himself either. There are, as has been hashed out here somewhat and elsewhere as well, many good things about the bill. Personally, I feel that the Senate bill should pass on the strength of Senator Sanders' amendment expanding the community health clinic program alone. That by itself would be a fantastic step forward, and it would actually have the benefit of helping people on the ground, in a tangible, obvious way that quite frankly the public option never seemed like it would.
And yet most of the noise one seems to hear from this place is "Kill the bill! Kill the bill!" Many here were disappointed with the bill, and perhaps rightly so. It was not what many of us had wanted. There were those of us who wanted some variation of what they have in Canada. Many of us wanted the public option. Some few of us (and I applaud them for their persistence and idealism) supported creating a National Health Service on the model of the UK. A few might even have supported the Wyden-Bennett bill, probably the best bill in years to have been received so poorly.
And yet, we are where we are now. So what do we do?
The title to this diary says it all: just shut up and pass the damn health care bill already. At this point, I don't care that the House of Representatives will have to swallow its collective pride by voting for the Senate bill. Nor do I buy into the belief that the House bill is better than the Senate bill, or that we could get a better deal in the conference or in reconciliation.
Quite honestly, I am very angry at organized labor right now for saying that they cannot support passing the Senate bill in the House, even though at present that is our best option (and a big "screw you" to Martha Coakley, by the way, for most incompetent campaigner of the old decade and the new). But back to organized labor for a moment: they had plenty of opportunities to make this a better bill. They had plenty of chances to make noise, to beg, borrow, steal, threaten, or bust kneecaps for whatever they wanted out of a health care bill. The same with everyone around. We all had a chance to step up and say what we wanted, and most of us passed the buck. Senator Baucus's incompetence and corporate and Republican boot-licking didn't help matters either. Nor did President Obama's outright refusal to consider something like Wyden-Bennett or Medicare for all.
However, in spite of all that, we finally got to where we are now. In spite of all the trouble, all the setbacks, all the difficulties, we finally have a working bill that already passed the Senate. And now, organized labor, and all the other Kill-Billers, now that we have paid the political price, now that we have bent over backwards to actually get a bill, now that all the ugly sausage making has finally produced a salami that actually looks rather edible... now, after all that work, you are telling us to not pass the bill and to start over completely from scratch, with nothing but experience to show for it?
That kind of response is so absurd as to be funny. It would be funny, if it were not being taken so seriously.
Just pass the damn thing already. For the love of whatever god you may worship... and if you hate all gods, then for the love of humanity itself. This whole post (rant?) is born of frustration, and it shows; and perhaps I will regret saying it later. But I think it still ought to be said.