Filmmaker Michael Moore talked with CNN's Anderson Cooper Tuesday evening about the failure of the healthcare reform bill's public option to pass, twice, in the US Senate yesterday. Moore asked where is the Democrats spine in the healthcare reform debate?
Moore has long been invovled in the debate over public health care, and in 2007, he premiered a documentary, Sicko, which compared the for-profit, non-universal U.S. system with the non-profit universal health care systems of several other nations.
"Some of the Democrats who voted 'nay' today said they did because they knew a bill with the public option wouldn't pass, and getting some bill is better than no bill," CNN's Anderson Cooper remarked. "Even Social Security, when it was first passed, it was nothing compared to what it ultimately became."
"That's correct," Moore, "but I can't stand listening to whiny Democrats, saying, "Well, we shouldn't even do it because it won't pass anyways."
"That's not how Republicans think," he continued. "You know, you gotta admire Republicans, they have the courage of their convictions. They just put it right out there. When they want to do something they just do it. They don't go, 'I don't know if we should invade Iraq, people might not like that.' They don't care. They just go ahead and do it."
"What is wrong with our side of the aisle? Where is the spine? Where is the courage?" he asked. "'Oh, they might filibuster.' Really? Let 'em filibuster. Let them read from cookbooks for twenty-four days. I'd like to see that. I'd like to see what the American people would do while they watched the Republicans read from cookbooks for twenty-four days reading from cookbooks filibustering something that should be a human right. The right to see a doctor when you get sick and not have to worry about paying for it."
Cooper then asked if Moore thought Obama was spineless.
Moore hedged, and didn't directly reply.
The following YouTube video originally aired on CNN on Tues., Sept. 29, 2009.
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