Chris Bowers points out today that both current House and Senate bills create a huge expansion in single-payer US healthcare:
The CBO report on the bill passed by the House (page 11), and the CBO report on the bill that was sent to the floor of the Senate (page 20), both project that the bills will add 15 million more Medicaid subscribers than current law. All of those 15 million are at 150% of the national poverty level or lower, and virtually all of them are currently uninsured.
(links to PDF's of CBO reports are in original post)
In comparison, he notes that the Senate's "opt-out public option was projected to cover 3-4 million people" and even the original "strong" Medicare-tied PO was projected to cover 10 million.
This is one of the largest expansions of the US social welfare state in decades, and unlike (say) Medicare Part D, it is targeted at the most vulnerable parts of our population.
This is (one of) the reasons that we have to pass this bill. Folks on this site say that taking out the PO leaves us with "nothing."
15 million poor folks, voiceless and uninsured, would like to disagree. I understand that maybe you live for "progressive political victory." They would like to live .