Rep. Dennis Kucinich held a press conference to announce that he will vote yes on the the health care reform bill, despite previously announcing he would vote no.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) announced this morning that he will in fact vote for the Senate health care bill. Kucinich’s switch was a major pickup for Democrats who are clinging to a razor thin majority on health care reform and have been struggling to find the votes to get it passed.
“This is not the bill I wanted to support,” Kucinich said. “However after careful discussions with President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, my wife Elizabeth and friends, I decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation.”
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“I know I have to make a decision not on the bill as I would like to see it but as it is,” Kucinich said, noting the Senate bill at least gave health coverage to 31 million more Americans. “My criticism of the legislation has been well reported. I do not retract those criticisms. I incorporate them into this statement.”
This is a big deal. Kucinich is a leader of the progressive block and had come in for a lot of criticism for saying that he would vote no. Obviously the pressure helped to flip his vote. I would like thank Rep. Kucinich for doing the right thing, though I don’t doubt that it is painful for him.
I think we all agree that this bill is not as good as it should be. In my opinion, it’s a big step forward. It’s establishing health care as a right guaranteed by the government and it will provide subsidies to help uninsured people purchase insurance, people who couldn’t afford insurance before. It’s also making the government responsible for absorbing the rise in health care costs, which I hope will lead to a better health care system in the future. It also helps to curb the worst abuses of health care providers.
I plan to keep on fighting. I think the next step is to support Rep. Grayson’s Medicare buy-in bill.