[throwaway123355]

Do you really think single-payer healthcare (versus the individual mandate in ObamaCare) was ever going to pass in the US? Obama literally adopted a Republican proposal for how to improve healthcare coverage, and the Republicans have spent every year since railing against it.

As someone who's pretty far to the left, I don't see how a (fiscally) far-left candidate/party would make any progress in the US. The centre is just so damn skewed towards "individual responsibility" and other bullshit that voters apparently love.

[TheCoelacanth]

We were one vote away from having a public option in Obamacare, which is what many of the people who aren't fully versed in healthcare jargon are really thinking of when they say "single payer". All it would have taken was for Joe Lieberman or any one Republican senator to allow it and most of the "single-payer" proponents would have been satisfied.