Dung Heap Builds a Starter Home

RUSH: Okay, a quick time-out, before we grab more phone calls, still got a lot of sound bites — in fact there’s a teaser, audio sound bite number one, just to let you know where we are headed, this is another See, I Told You So. Tom Harkin, Tom ‘Dung Heap’ Harkin from Iowa, was on CBS Early Show today, the cohost Maggie Rodriguez said, ‘Even if this happens and it passes the Senate, then you have to reconcile the differences with the House that contained more stringent restrictions on abortion and no public option, would you be willing to change your position on either of those two issues?’

HARKIN: I am a strong supporter of a public option, remain so, and I believe that sometime in the near future we will revisit that issue again and we will adopt a public option. It’s not gonna probably happen on this bill because we need the votes to get the big things through, Maggie. It’s — we have to keep our eye on what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to cross a demarcation line, this is the way I put it. On one side is health care as a privilege, on the other side is health care as a right. With these votes, with the vote that we’ll take before Christmas, we will cross that line finally and say that health care is a right of all Americans.

RUSH: He actually continued later on, held a press conference and added this to it.

HARKIN: I know a lot of my progressive friends have been upset that certain things weren’t in it. What we’re building here is not a mansion. It’s starter home. But it’s got a great foundation. We’re expanding health care coverage to 31 million Americans. It’s got a great protective roof, and it has room for expansion and additions in the future. But if we don’t start the starter home, we’ll never get there. So this is not the end of health care reform. This is the beginning of health care reform.

RUSH: They couldn’t be any more precisely clear about what they’re doing here. They’re headed to single payer but they gotta cross the line of demarcation. They’re being very honest in their confidence.