Yes, believe it or not, there are now some key liberal voices coming out against Obamacare. Although not for the same reasons that conservatives oppose it of course. Rather it's because they feel that the Senate leadership has crossed the liberal line in the sand in terms of the latest version (such as it is) not going "far enough".
The latest big-time liberal to voice opposition was former DNC Chairman and Vermont Governor Howard Dean. From the AP [5]:
Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean argued Wednesday that
the health care overhaul bill taking shape in the Senate further
empowers private insurers at the expense of consumer choice."You will now be forced to buy insurance. If you don't, you'll pay a fine,"
said Dean, a physician. "It's an insurance company bailout."
Interviewed on ABC's "Good Morning America," he said the bill has some
good provisions, "but there has to be a line beyond which you think the
bill is bad for the country.""This is an insurance company's
dream," the former Democratic presidential candidate said. "This is the
Washington scramble, and it's a shame."
Dean even went on MSNBC's "Countdown" [6] last night and said:
“You can’t vote for a bill like this in good conscience. … It costs too much money. It isn’t health care reform. It isn’t even insurance reform.”
Of course, his problems with the bill don't extend to a normal conservative reaction, like: the federal government forcing private individual to actually purchase a consumer product is un-constitutional, for instance. But we'll take what we can get.
And now the founder/editor of the powerful liberal blog Daily Kos has come out against it [7] as well, saying:
"Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate."
He also said [8]:
My take is that it’s unconscionable to force people to buy a product from a private insurer that enjoys sanctioned monopoly status. It’d be like forcing everyone to attend baseball games, but instead of watching the Yankees, they were forced to watch the Kansas City Royals. Or Washington Nationals. It would effectively be a tax — and a huge one — paid directly to a private industry. Without any mechanisms to control costs, this is yet another bailout for yet another reviled industry.
And then there's the other leading liberal blog, Firedoglake [9], which had the following take:
The health insurance Americans are forced to purchase will not be affordable. Middle class families (making 300%-400% of FPL) will only get subsidies sufficient to make the premiums for the second cheapest insurance at the low quality silver level (70% actuarial) cost 10% of their income. … The individual mandate in this bill is nothing more than government-enforced private taxation on behalf of large, for-profit corporations. It would be just one more step toward corporate serfdom.
Glad to have them aboard!
