VIDEO: 'Why should the liberals always cave?' Dem asks

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Here's the video, thanks to Commenter ThomEJ. Blog title updated to reflect addition:



I've looked everywhere for the video of this, but no luck. Not even on the CNN site. They only provided the interviews with Amy Klobuchar and Ben Nelson, who CNN says "were directly at odds with" Ellison. I could make something of that, but of course, I won't:

"Why should the liberals always cave?" Ellison said when confronted with the prospect that Obama might ask the liberal members of the party to compromise.

Asked what he would like for the president to say Wednesday in a joint address to Congress that will focus on health care, Ellison stuck to his guns.

"He could say, 'You know what, the public option is essential to reform.' He could say that a public option is the only thing that's going to hold insurance premiums down. . . . He could say that a public option with a large provider network is going to help promote better medical practices based on evidence. So, I'm hoping that he understands the essentiality of the public option."

Why yes, yes Prez O could say all of that. That would be splendid, just splendid.

Ellison rejected outright the idea of bringing a public health insurance option into the insurance market through a so-called "trigger" that would kick in years after passage of a health-care reform bill and only if the private insurance industry failed to meet certain benchmarks relating to coverage and cost.

Ellison said private insurers wielded substantial market power "in nearly every major metropolitan area" that gives companies the ability to set premiums at high rates.

"How are we going to get them down? By introducing three things: competition, choice and a competitive price. I don't know how any conservative can be against those three things," he said.

What a rebel, huh? One might say he even makes, you know, sense.

Ellison also said Sunday that non-profit co-ops, an idea under consideration in bipartisan negotiations in the Senate Finance Committee, also would not suffice in his view because they would not have large enough provider networks.

The Democrat also told King that co-ops should not be used out of an anti-government mindset.

"Let's stop this ideological commitment to bashing government," he said

Ellison also encouraged Obama to use reconciliation, a special Senate procedure relating to budgetary legislation, in order to get a bill passed with a bare majority — likely all Democrats — in the Senate.

Boy howdy, I sure would have enjoyed seeing him say all this on video, as I did when I watched him on the Tee Vee Machine this morning. But alas, as I said, CNN has not made it available.

Now we can't share his wonderful comments on YouTube or on TPC or anywhere. People will have to actually read, and you know how averse some are to that kind of thing. It takes ::shudder:: effort.

With all the other snippets CNN has posted, it's really a shame this one wasn't included. It must have just been an oversight, don'tcha think? Yeah, that had to be it.