*#!$@**&%!!#

F**k the conventional wisdom.

The conventional wisdom today: So it isn't perfect.  But the Senate health care bill would prevent insurance companies from refusing coverage to people who are already sick.  It will, um. . . .it will extend coverage to 30 million people who aren't covered now.  Tell them we won't pass the bill because it isn't perfect.

F**k the conventional wisdom.

C'mon, the conventional wisdom says, be practical.  With the little compromises we've made, we can get the backing we need to pass a bill.  Think of it!  A health care law, after all these years of contention.  An actual bill we can get to the President's desk to be signed into law.

F**k the conventional wisdom.  Why?

1. The bill won't really cover 30 million more Americans.  It simply mandates that every single American buy health insurance or break the law and face penalties and fines. So, rather than "covering" 30 million more Americans, the bill makes them criminals if they don't buy insurance from the same companies that corrupted our health care system in the first place.

2. A real public option -- which in itself is a compromise from true reform, which would have given us a single-payer system --  is a tool that would drive down costs and improve coverage by offering an affordable alternative to private insurance. Your gutless, spineless Democratic "leadership" in the Senate has bargained that away to get "a bill that can pass."




3. It is loaded with little sops to "key" senators to buy their votes.  Sops that sock the rest of us, like the stealth cap on coverage for long-term illnesses, or this little gem: $50 million for abstinence-only sex education.  That's not education; that's not health care; that's religion. "Congress shall pass no law. . ."

F**k the conventional wisdom.

"Honestly, the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill," former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told Vermont Public Radio. "The Senate has somehow managed to turn the House's silk purse into a sow's ear," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus. "Without a public option and no hope of expanding Medicare coverage, this bill is not worth supporting," said Stephanie Taylor, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "Without a public option, this bill is almost a trillion dollar taxpayer giveaway to insurance companies," said Jim Dean, a spokesman for a liberal Democratic action group.

The Senate bill is a tribute to the corruption of Joe Lieberman, the man without a soul, who is owned, lock, stock, barrel and bullshit, by the insurance industry and the Israeli hawk lobby.

"I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement," Soulless Joe said recently."The government going into the health insurance business - I think it's such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote."

F**k Joe Lieberman.