To claim that a health care bill without a public option is anything other than a huge achievement for progressives is, frankly, bullshit.
Does that sound ridiculous today, 12/10/09? Let Nate Silver persuade you. I mean it. Go over there and read his assessment of what's been achieved in the past few months in -- yes -- health care.
Liberals have tended to underestimate what a significant political achievement it would be for Democrats to pass such a major bill that has become rather unpopular with the public. It would be going too far to characterize the Democrats as courageous for passing health care reform (if they do), because at the end of the day, the political case for passing health care reform is probably stronger than the case for failing to do so. Moreover, the handling of public option debate is not completely exogenous from the bill's popularity or lack thereof. Nevertheless, Democrats have been negotiating into a stiff political headwind for months now, and have been rather resilient in the face of it.
Nate Silver isn't perfect. Well, maybe he isn't. But he's damn good. He blew people away before the election, got plenty of press. Like this:
It’s not that Nate Silver is psychic, or even that he’s right all the time. He’s just proved very good, especially of late, at looking at what’s already happened and using that information to predict what will happen next.
