I get it. I really do. I’m not being snarky, I’m 100% serious.

It’s the hope for something better.

Under the mandate, the hope is that 30 million people will be insured that wouldn’t otherwise be insured. Hopefully the private insurance plans will be structured such that working and low-middle income families won’t be forced to plow through 10% or 20% of their income for basic care. Hope that families living that tight can find enough extra money – perhaps in an upturned economy – to make it work, rather than face IRS penalties.

Hope that the skyrocketing costs of health care will be slowed down enough so that working families won’t be further forced into that scenario by private insurers looking to squeeze out as many dollars as possible from the consumer. Even though these companies won’t be constrained by antitrust laws or the need to stay competitive with a robust public option of some sort that could be fine-tuned by the feds to meet Americans’ needs, maybe they won’t leap in and maximize profits, out of fear of pushing the system into collapse. Or maybe the same Congress that rejected such meaningful, systemic checks on costs will loosen up a bit when the heat comes down and vote to expand one of the cost control pilots in the bill. Maybe concerns about the effectiveness of those mechanisms will prove unwarranted. Maybe the Independent Medicare Advisory Board will live up to its theoretical potential and impact the very way health care is priced.

Hope that the tax on benefits won’t force many employers to cut back on existing health care plans, thus putting increased costs onto a middle class already reeling from recession. Perhaps employers will feel committed enough to their employees and to an understanding of the positive potential of an improved insurance system to bite the bullet on behalf of those employees.

Hope that states will be up to the task of enforcing the bill’s demanded changes to insurance company behavior.

Hope that insurance companies won’t continue to use loose, unrestrained and heartless definitions of “pre-existing conditions” to increase as many premiums as possible to the maximum allowable, above and beyond the base limits.

Hope that the extra money for Community Health Centers thet Bernie Sanders pushed into the final agreement will be enough to help those that fall between the cracks, or make so little money they are exempted from the individual mandate.

Hope that millions of women won’t find their abortion coverage stripped away from them, making it an out of pocket expense that effectively takes away choice for working class women.

And finally hope that if all those (and other) best-case scenarios don’t come to pass, that somebody – somewhere – will do something to step in and fix it in some way that isn’t spelled out in the Senate legislation at this point. Maybe legislators will be eager to take up health care reform again. Maybe the rejected Medicare buy-in can be revisited – this time without resistance from the Insurance Industry, who may feel magnanimous after getting so much of what they wanted.

Maybe the economy will turn up and improve everyone’s lot enough to make this work, one way or another. Obama is a good man, maybe he can just do something as President if the worst of what could happen becomes manifest.

Maybe, if the right combination of economic circumstance, patience and just-enough-goodwill-or-cooperation from the insurance companies come together, this could make everything better – not perfect – just better.

I get it. I really do. For most, supporting this Senate bill is a statement of optimism – and who can possibly be against optimism? Without it, what are we?

But based on personal experience, observation, and our understanding of the way our institutions work, many of us don’t share that optimism in regards to this half-a-reform. And without it, unlike with the also-disappointing Catamount Health Plan (which I supported and continue to support) – its too easy to see everything getting worse if this becomes the law of the land.

So for us, especially those of us who have banged our heads against the wall on this issue for decades, now – our optimism becomes manifest in fighting to the very, very last – as hard as we can – to improve this bill.

And who can possibly be against optimism, after all?

(CLICK HERE to sign the FDL petition to stop the Senate bill from becoming the law)