The People Versus the Insurance Companies -- Updated

Here's what Paul Krugman, the Nobel-Prize-winning economist who writes for that liberal socialist Marxist New York Times, had to say about this issue this morning:

(I)f surveys like the New York Times/CBS News poll released last weekend are any indication, voters are ready for major change.

The question now is whether we will nonetheless fail to get that change, because a handful of Democratic senators are still determined to party like it’s 1993.

And yes, I mean Democratic senators. The Republicans, with a few possible exceptions, have decided to do all they can to make the Obama administration a failure. Their role in the health care debate is purely that of spoilers who keep shouting the old slogans — Government-run health care! Socialism! Europe! — hoping that someone still cares.

(Note to Paul: Someone does still care -- the clueless one-quarter.)

The polls suggest that hardly anyone does. Voters, it seems, strongly favor a universal guarantee of coverage, and they mostly accept the idea that higher taxes may be needed to achieve that guarantee. What’s more, they overwhelmingly favor precisely the feature of Democratic plans that Republicans denounce most fiercely as “socialized medicine” — the creation of a public health insurance option that competes with private insurers.

Yep. Paul's got it. I'll only add to his analysis that progressives know who these Democrats are that he's talking about. We're taking names and compiling a list, and a lot of these mopes are going to get an election-year primary surprise in 2010 if they vote the wrong way on this one.

The purpose of taking names is to prepare for kicking some ass. And it's Democratic asses we need to kick this time. The Republicans have blathered themselves into total irrelevancy.

As I said before, I doubt that we'll get health care legislation this time. What we're going to get, thanks to Democrats like Ben Nelson and Evan Bayh, is insurance company legislation. Then next year they'll find out the true meaning of the rainbow:

God fixed heaven with the rainbow sign;
No more water; fire next time.

That's from an old spiritual.

Are you reading this, Senator Murray? The real races next year won't be the November runoffs, in which Democratic incumbents and challengers beat the Republicans up one side of the map and down the other. They'll be in July, when many old-guard, status-quo-supporting Democrats suddenly find themselves in life-and-death primary struggles against progressive upstarts. And many of those contests may be decided by the impeding health-care votes. I wouldn't want to be a Democratic incumbent having to recite to my constituents one year from now the reasons why I voted against their health care today.

All power to the people.

UPDATE: There were signs just this morning that the Democrats may respond to public pressure, do the right thing, and enact a public health care bill after all.

See the Talking Points Memo piece, Democrats May Go It Alone...

If Congressional, and especially Senate Democrats as a group should have the hearts and spines to do this, it would mean they'll be biting the hand that's been feeding them, and siding with the people instead. That might be a momentous step.

Keep watching to see who (besides Republicans) votes against it.

All power to the people.