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In reply to the discussion: Democrats See Conservative Blue Dogs as Key to Winning House [View all]zipplewrath
(16,698 posts)We instituted a mandate after saying that mandates were dumb and like solving homelessness by requiring people to buy a house. It was far from universal coverage, and it kept the prohibition on medicare drug price negotiation after we spent years complaining about it. We arrested single payer advocates at a congressional hearing, and we had to do all of these deals with individual states which severely undermined the credibility of the process, not to mention the outcome. We spent months saying we had to have a public option, only to declare "never mind". Leiberman opposed a feature that would have allowed people to buy into medicare, after running on just such a thing as a VP candidate. Oh, and the result was the Tea Party and the loss of the House.
We really wanna repeat all that?