There's been considerable debate on the Senate health care bill where it belongs: among democrats.

Some progressives want to scrap the bill - and start over, I guess. There's a sense that it reall is worse than nothing, since the mandate in the absence of some form of public option or other cost controls amounts to rewarding the industry's bad behavior, not only with taxpayer subsidies, but with citizens' own earnings.

I'm starting to get the idea that people simply can't get anything they actually want without carving it out as a compromise from the plutarchy. And really, once I look at it in that light, I become less concerned about whether the health insurance industry is getting something it doesn't deserve. It's (mostly) not my money, after all.

But I have to admit that we are getting something in return. It's not WORTH it, and it's not just, but it's something.

The more interesting discussions have to do with the political tactics involved in the debate of whether to reject the bill. How are voters going to react? If progressives kill this bill, and nothing passes in its place, will progressive voters really stay home rather than voting in the midterms, scuttling the (non-) majority they barely held together to pass this turd of a bill?

I have to admit this claim sounds absurd. Reid has been whining about not having 60 votes for years, bringing into sharp focus that the quality of legislation turns on the number of good legislators you can get in the Senate. If it's becoming apparent that we can't get what we want with as many votes as we have (and it sure as hell isn't 60), why in the world would people not continue voting for more and better Democrats? Wouldn't the first thing to cross people's minds in explaining such a failure be the same thing we've been told for years?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that conventional wisdom holds that Reid has his magical 60 votes when he obviously DOES NOT. Despite the fact that Lieberman and Nelson are "in the caucus" (ever seen a liberal Republican?), they are clearly not constituting your hallowed 60 vote majority if you strip out the entire centerpiece of meaningful legislation just to get them to ALLOW A VOTE on the bill. Nonetheless, voters have been hearing this magical "we finally have a filibuster-proof majority", and still wonder why the fuck nothing worth a damn can get done.

Regardless, everybody is pretty much coming to terms that nobody is going to get what they want, and the debate has moved to the consequences for "fixing it in post". The discussion is about which outcome will get more left-wing voters to the polls in the next election, because the Senators we have are obviously not enough. One must compare estimates of base voters demoralized away from voting by the Senate's paralysis against estimates of those energized by the fact that, well, we got a bill, which is more than we've had in decades, even if it's worse than nothing.

Will more voters be demoralized if the current bill passes, or if it doesn't? THEN, compare to how many voters will be ENERGIZED by the argument (presuming this message, "more and BETTER Democrats", is pushed competently) that we still need more votes in the Senate, if the current bill passes, or not.

It's a complicated calculation. I have no damn idea.