Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Jon Walker v. Wendell Potter on Democracy Now!

By FireDogLake's Jane Hamsher FDL

Jon Walker debated Wendell Potter on Democracy Now this morning. “Debate” is the wrong word probably — Wendell said he agreed with Jon had to say about the Senate bill’s limitations, he just thought it should pass anyway:

AMY GOODMAN: And Jon Walker, of the sixteen demands, sixteen ways to fix the Senate bill, can you carry on with what you feel needs to be done?

JON WALKER: Oh, yeah. I don’t think the bill does anything to hold the insurance companies honest. And what we’re doing is we’re creating a mandate. We’re going to use the IRS to force people to buy a product, which is frankly a bad product, poorly regulated and not really worth the value of purchasing it. And that is a huge step for the government to give to the insurance companies, and it has not demanded enough concessions in return from them to justify that.

Wendell said he “would advise all progressives to really focus on the House bill over the next few days, next few weeks, to encourage and, in fact, demand that House leaders stand firm on the legislation that they have passed already.”

I have to wonder what negotiating position he thinks they have if Joe Lieberman is the only one drawing lines in the sand.

1 Comment to “Jon Walker v. Wendell Potter on Democracy Now!”
rach777 Wendell Potter came across as very weak kneed..He was feebly trying to justify why ANY bill should be put on the President’s desk to sign. At the outset, he decided to characterize the program as a “discussion” not a debate, because he couldn’t really hold to the talking points of his Huffington Post blog. Frankly, I was shocked by his capitulation to what is being sold as heath care reform, and he tried to slither out of what he wrote in Huff Post by reiterating his having gone through stages of grief about the bill. Who cares about his personal denial, anger and the rest as a reason for his coming to the conclusion that just about anything should be passed. I have lost respect for this so called whistleblower.