Kucinich said he is making a decision not on the bill as he would like to see it, but as it is. Kucinich said he does "not detract" from his prior criticisms. The bill is not a step towards anything he has supported in the end. "However, after careful discussions" with Obama and Pelosi, he will vote yes.
Just two days ago Kucinich wrote an op-ed for the Cleveland Plain Dealer in which he excoriated Obamacare:
Unfortunately, the president's plan, as it currently stands, leaves patients financially vulnerable to insurance companies. It requires all Americans to buy private health insurance policies, while failing to ensure those policies do what they are supposed to do -- protect people from financial catastrophe caused by injury or illness....Kucinich now will vote for a bill which is worse, in his own words just two days ago, than the House bill he voted against.Unfortunately, if the president's plan becomes law without substantive change, you would still be only a major illness or injury away from personal bankruptcy, except the federal government will have required you to buy a private health insurance policy....
[T]he version of the bill that reached the House floor was considerably watered down. It had a severely weakened public option and the employee-retirement waiver had been stripped. It no longer constituted an incremental step forward that would provide relief to my constituents, so I could not support it. The version of the bill that passed the Senate was even worse.
Obama has succeeded in destroying the last principled progressive.
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