Congress choice on healthcare: It's simple: Us or them

Let's be very clear the vote in Congress on any healthcare bill is very simply a choice between the people and the healthcare insurance companies. This is the way Howard Dean put it last Friday (7/17) on Democracy Now:

Well, I am going to address it, not specifically to Chairman [Max] Baucus [D-Montana], but let me just be very clear about this. This has been cast in the media, and probably seen by Republican consultants, as a Republican versus Democrat issue or conservative versus liberal issue. It’s not. When 72 percent of the American people, including more than 50 percent of Republicans, believe that they ought to have the choice between a public or a private system, this is not a liberal-conservative thing. This is whether you’re going to vote with the health insurance companies or whether you’re going to vote for what 72 percent of your constituencies want. That is what this vote is about.