I received a long email from Dennis Kucinich that had

This was a particularly hard decision because the private insurance model is something that I don't support. As I've said before, I don't take back any of the criticisms I've made of the bill. This is reform within the context of a for-profit system. And the for-profit system has been quite predatory — it makes money for not providing health care. Now, the reforms in this bill may provide some relief from that impulse. But, nevertheless, I have my work cut out for me now in continuing the effort toward a much broader approach to health care reform, which would include attention to diet, nutrition, complementary alternative medicine, and empowering states to move forward with single-payer.

When it comes to analyzing the law we've just passed, it's hard to use terms like good or bad. Because ultimately what was decisive for me was not the bill, but rather the potential to create an opening for a more comprehensive approach toward health care reform. If the bill were to go down, this whole discussion about anything we might hope to do in health care in the future is not going to happen in this generation. We had to wait sixteen years after the demise of the Clinton plan to come to this moment. And the angst that members are feeling about this bill — the temperature that's been raised in the body politic over this bill, the characterizations of the bill in a debate that's been quite distorted — all of those things argue against bringing up another health care bill in the near future if this bill were to go down.

Last year, seventy-seven members of Congress agreed that if the bill didn't have a public option, they were going to vote against it. And there were only two members who had kept that pledge when it was voted on the first time in the House. And I was one of them. And the other one's no longer in Congress. So I basically was the last man standing here. So I'm aware of the debate that took place in favor of the bill. My concern was that this bill was hermetically sealed to admit no opening toward a not-for-profit system, no competition from the public sector with the private insurers. Which makes the claims of a government takeover such a joke. You know, those who claim that this is socialism probably don't know anything about socialism — or capitalism. ....


But let's go deeper than that. We're at a pivotal moment in American history, and in contrast to a crippled presidency, I have to believe that this effort, however imperfect, will now have a broad positive effect on American society, and make possible many things that might not have otherwise been possible. Once this bill is signed into law, more Americans are going to be aware of this as they ask, What's in it for me? And as they become more familiar with the new law, more people will be accepting this bill. The president will have a stronger hand in domestic and international affairs, and that will be good for the country. The Democrats will be emboldened to pass an economic agenda, which has been waiting for this bill to pass. Wrong or right, as far as a strategy, the White House invested so much in this health care bill that everything else was waiting. Now, I think there's a chance that the party will regain some momentum. And if it does, then the American people will finally have a chance to see something done about creating jobs, about keeping people in their homes, about helping small businesses get access to credit, which is a huge problem right now.