I Wrote To My Congressman asking that he vote for the Senate's health care reform bill. ..
→[More:]
He's in the progressive caucus, and here is part of his reply:
One proposal that is being talked about is to have the House simply vote for the Senate bill and send that to the President, bypassing the need for the Senate to vote again. This would be coupled with assurances that we would "fix" all the problems with the Senate bill later on. Let me be clear. I am adamantly opposed to such a plan. The Senate bill was a disaster and I will not vote for it. It included a 40% tax on so called "Cadillac" health plans that would in reality hit millions of middle class Americans. The Senate bill completely removed my language to eliminate the antitrust exemptions held by the insurance industry, which was a vital tool in ending the insurance industries abusive practices and saving consumers billions of dollars in premiums. The Senate bill is also loaded up with special interest provisions to secure the votes of Senators. That is not health care reform. As for the promise of "lets pass it now and we'll fix it later," I have been in Washington long enough to know that promises of "fixing it later" almost never happen. I was told the same thing before we passed NAFTA, which I voted against. We're still waiting to "fix" it.
This means basically that he gets to keep his progressive creds but we will now wait another generation for health care reform because the liberals in the House will not vote for the Senate bill. I am pretty upset about this.
He goes to my gym when he's in town and I am tempted to engage him on this but I probably won't.