Good to see Ron is still in corporate hands. We don't need his mealymouthed plan. We need single payer universal coverage that recognizes healthcare as a human right, not a privilege. Wyden's plan is another way of saying that some people, because they are poor, deserve to be sick and die.

No way Wyden. Corporate appeaser plan. Wonder how much he gets in campaign donations from the insurance industry? I would rather keep what I have through my employer than be forced into the insurance in dustries clutches as an individual. No matter all the promisises in his plan they will be useless when everyone is in the clutches of the insurance industry. Look at the auto-insurance industry..yeah they have regulators but they NEVER turn down an insurance increase by the industry.

Wyden's official web site has a statement outlining his Healthy Americans Act - http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/Legislation/Healthy_Americans_Act.cfm. The article has a YouTube photo of Wyden backed by Senators Lieberman and Bennett. That should be a clue to be very skeptical about this plan. Check opensecrets.org to follow the money.

There is of course an overriding illogic to the Oregonian's editorial (from which we know there position is more about politics and privilege than it is about health care reform we need.)

If we had single-payer, as I think any rational and humane person now has come to support, it would be irrelevant to even talking about taxing "health care benefits". We would simply be adjusting our tax system to more efficiently provide the health care our society needs. So if the Oregonian really thinks we should look at changing our tax system to help fix our health care system, and presumably they favor the most effective tax system and efficient use of tax dollars possible, they must be 100% behind single payer. So what advantage do we gain from having Wyden's plan on the table slowing down and possibly politically sabotaging the most sensible solution they support?

The fact they are now trying to provide political cover for Wyden as he's had to respond to political pressure from his constituency is the clue. Up until this re-election campaign Wyden has increasingly thumbed his nose at those who brought him to the dance, and his health care plan was his grandest, most arrogant, "up yours" to his base. First Merkley broke with Wyden after he saw sticking with the corporate interests in the party who got him elected on health care could make him a one-term Senator. Now Wyden is waffling because he is seeing his welfare-for-the-industry plan which also screws small business and all working people is dragging down his numbers for 2010.

The Oregonian still is making the last, but most dishonest argument of all for the corporate health insurance industry and corporate America generally: They are trying to hijack the argument of honest representatives of the people that we need "all plans" on the table because reform in the interest of the people hasn't been on the table. As we've just started to get that dialog going, they are desperately trying to pervert that argument to keep the interests and plans of a corrupt industry which are counter to the real interests of the people on the table. The Oregonian editorial board is deceitful and transparent, and they own all Oregonians an apology.

Like I said, if the Oregonian thinks we need to revisit how we tax Americans to pay for health care, they should instead be saying we need to get a dishonest plan like Wyden's off the table and support a Medicare-for-All system which will provide the most efficient use of tax resources. And we should all be looking for a Democratic candidate to run against Wyden in 2010 who wants to fix the system for our benefit rather than undermine reform for his own and the industry's benefit as he has wanted to do for the last several years. He is only know is starting to sing another tune, but not too enthusiastically, just to try to save his job.

Oh and by the way, has anybody else noticed the general tone at "Blue" Oregon, supposedly the champion of working people and labor, has been decidely on Wyden's anti-working-person side in this little debate. Where are the threads from the hypocrites listed on the upper right there commenting on the merit of the case labor has made, and the hypocrisy of the Wyden's defenders including the Oregonian.

Looks like this election cycle is one in which we the true colors of "Pin Stripe Oregon" and all the glad-handing pols, but fair-weather pals, who they associate with are fully revealed. Now that could be the start of political change I can really believe in.

From the web site for Physicians for a National Health Program: Wyden's "Healthy Americans Act" is Wrong Model for Health Reform" - http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/february/wydens_healthy_ame.php. There is a piece in this article regarding the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan:

"Wyden stated that whenever he has a public forum, some single payer advocate explains the advantages of single payer and there is cheering in the audience. Then there is someone in the back of the room who denounces government. And finally, someone says “we want what you have”. Wyden pulls out his health card and says that he has private health insurance and explains that his plan would give Americans “what members of Congress have”."

I have this same plan. While it its better than most it comes up short in many cases. For openers, my family plan has a $700 deductible. I can think of many families that would have a problem with that plus co-pays and paying for prescriptions.

Critics of single-payer health plans like to spout off about some anonymous "government bureaucrat" deciding whether you will get the care you need. This is usually an exaggeration, but the same people never talk about the people exposed in government hearings who were employed by health insurance companies for the specific purposes of denying treatment and insurance claims.

If you believe that insurance corporations are more concerned with your health than their profits you're just too naive for words.

Try also searching for "wyden healthy americans act" for more before locking yourself into any position - pro or con.

As Senator Wyden's Chief of Staff and a dedicated reader of BlueOregon, please allow me to offer up a few thoughts.

I should say, at the front end, that I intend to enjoy some of this wonderful Sunday and won't be able to spend my day responding to the devoted critics of the Healthy Americans Act. However, I respect your views and hope that you will accord mine some open-minded thought.

1. Single-payer supporters and Senator Wyden share a number of important beliefs, despite Jim's rather ill-informed statement:

"Wyden's plan is another way of saying that some people, because they are poor, deserve to be sick and die."

The senator thinks that the current system produces exactly the result that Jim protests. He desperately wants to end the caste system that exists today in American health care. Currently, if you are poor enough in America you qualify for Medicaid. How many of you have tried finding a doctor who accepts new Medicaid patients? Most middle and upper class Americans see doctors who don't and won't accept Medicaid patients. Are most Medicaid doctors and facilities the equal of rich people's health care? Not even close. What exactly do poor people gain from "reform" that doesn't give poor people access to the same physicians and care that rich people receive? Several current proposals would simply expand the range of incomes that would be eligible for a Medicaid system that locks in place the caste system of haves and have-nots in American health care.

The Wyden bill guarantees that poor people receive exactly the same care, doctors, options, etc. that rich people - like Members of Congress - receive. And it subsidizes that coverage for people earning up to 400% of the poverty level (I believe that is in the $80,000+ range for a family of four). And it is care that can never be taken away, even if they lose their jobs or look for a new one.

Think about it: someone currently living below or up to 400% of poverty level, seeing the exact same physician and receiving the exact same services as their Senator or Congressman. Shouldn't single payer supporters be making common cause with Senator Wyden on this, particularly because so much of the left has abandoned the single payer cause for "public option" which, in and of itself, will maintain the immoral caste system in American health care?

1. While some critics claim that Ron is in the pocket of health insurance companies, this comes as rather a surprise to the health insurance industry which is adamantly opposed to the Wyden bill and is spending many millions of dollars to defeat the Wyden plan.

Senator Wyden was the first to propose, in bipartisan legislation, sweeping federal regulation for the insurance industry that would fundamentally and forever alter the way they have been making money for lo these many years. Why should you care? Currently, the health insurers make their money by shedding risk. They seek primarily the young and healthy, discriminate against those with health issues and advanced age, and attempt to deny or delay coverage to customers who develop health problems. Personally, I could never feel good about earning my money that way, and yet AHIP (the health insurance trade association) is offering up toothless, faux reform in D.C. to fight the Wyden proposals (that have now, to some degree, have been adopted by Kennedy, Baucus, and Obama) and continue on their merry way. Ron started, and is continuing, the fight for an end to discriminating on the basis of age or pre-existing conditions and for community rating (everyone would pay the same for coverage regardless of age or where they live). He is seeking radical change - to force these insurance companies to compete on the basis of who is producing the best outcomes for their customers through prevention, services, quality of care, etc. Every policy offered would have to be equal to that offered to members of Congress, with no exceptions.

1. The Oregon Health Fund Board, on which my friend and health care champion Tom Chamberlain (the President of Oregon AFL-CIO) serves, recommended that Congress enact a state public option so that Oregon could pursue that course. Nowhere in their report and recommendations to Oregon did they call for a national public option (even though they offered other national responses). Similarly, former Governor John Kitzhaber specifically asked Senator Wyden to grant the states a wide berth to experiment with health care dollars.

Senator Wyden's bill has not one, but two "public option" provisions in his proposal, though he is very much open to a responsibly-funded national public option if it is accompanied by true reform. First and foremost, his bill offers a glide path for states to enact their own public option and receive the required federal waiver from the Secretary of HHS. Then, his bill also requires the Federal government to step in and put in place a public option if individual states don't have adequate options and competition between plans to offer consumers. On both a public option and state flexibility, his proposal does what the Oregon Health Fund Board and Gov. Kitzhaber asked Senator Wyden to do.

1. Those who continue to attack the Wyden proposal to finance health reform by treating Cadillac health benefits as income -- benefits well in excess to what Members of Congress receive -- continually refuse to acknowledge that many of the leading, most thoughtful, liberal voices in our country and state have endorsed his proposal because 1) it is progressive and the current tax system is regressive, 2) it credibly produces the enormous amount of money required to pay for health reform, and/or 3) public option health reform will cost money, a whole lot of money, more money than we currently have unless we make bold changes.

For the record, these leading, liberal voices have supported Senator Wyden's health reform financing plan:

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities The Oregon Center for Public Policy Ezra Klein Jonathan Cohn

In closing, former Congressman Les AuCoin (a public option supporter) attempted to defend Senator Wyden on his health reform efforts on Facebook last night, and rather quickly was hectored into submission by the my-way-or-the-highway internet swarm. We thank him very much.

Senator Wyden looks forward to a unified, progressive, health reform proposal that he, President Obama, Chairmen Baucus and Kennedy will all champion and enact. Until then, thank you for thinking about how to change the current, unsustainable, immoral system of American health care.

Oh Josh,Josh,Josh. Same as members of congress? At the same price? Yeah though so....

and reading some today didn't the "progressive" Mr Wyden also vote for another cash-pig for the insurance/health care profit companies..the Medicare Modernization Act..that wonderful piece that made big bucks for the corporations and banned medicare from negotiating cheaper drug prices. Methinks MrWyden isnt very progressive at least in healthcare than we are brainwashed to think?

"Dave" I would rather have nothing, than Wydens gift to the insurance corporations.

"on Wyden's anti-working-person side"

I thought Wydens' thrust was to tax paid health insurance benefits (like the over-generous public employee health plans) to help pay for health insurance for the poor?

Not that it would do any good, I am sure the employee unions would make the taxpayers pay the tax or get an exemption so thye could keep gold-plated benes while the rest of us get sub-par care.

Thank you CBurr: BUT: :"From Wyden's plan: "Families between $40,000 and $50,000 would pay about $81/year more - about $7 a month. Families between $50,000 and $150,000 would average between $327 and $341 per year more - about $28 a month."

"more" than what? At the moment i pay like $78 a monthy for a pretty good $250 deductable Kaiser plan..and I am happy.. So would i pay $81 more than my $78 or $81 more a year than my employer pays..I sure couldnt afford that!!

Charlie - I think you are using old data. Factcheck.org got it right - independent analysis showed that taxpayers making up to $150,000 would still come out ahead by about $300 a year. On the rest of your points, I mostly agree.

In particular, I agree with your approval of the many people with passion for this issue. I look forward to the day - not too long from now, I think -- when we are all applying that passion to fight the many corporate forces that are already aligned against enacting President Obama's health reform legislation.

C.Burr but if this plan was going to be enacted wouldn't it make sense for employers..who after all are for profit companies to drop all healthcare a few mopnth before there fore not need to pay the employees more? This is really a treuelly awful plan that will make many middle class Americans far worse off. Employers aint dumb.

Oh Josh,Josh,Josh. Same as members of congress? At the same price? Yeah though so....

Oh OregonScot, I bring you good news.

Same as members of Congress? Precisely. Exactly. No difference.

At the same price? Precisely. Exactly. No difference.

This goes to my earlier point about ending the caste system of American health care. We can all have the same options at the same price if we are willing to make some bold changes AND if your Congress can find the will and the votes.

Josh if this were so maybe its worth looking at. I cant believe they could do it at the same price and remain for-profit corporations. Wouldnt that go against corporate law? I cant see it..there would have to be a very strong regulator with NO ties to the industry. Well if Wyden can guarantee the same coverage for the same price..then OK its not as bad as it seems . But I just cant see it.

"I thought Wydens' thrust was to tax paid health insurance benefits (like the over-generous public employee health plans) to help pay for health insurance for the poor?"

Those of us with the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) are fortunate, indeed, but it isn't a wonder plan as many would like to believe.

For my family plan, the government will pay the insurance company $9166.56 in 2009. My premiums will be $4279.08. Then there is a $700 deductible. Dental pays very little. In 2008, despite being in generally good health, my wife and I still had to pay $2,531 for medical (mostly checkups) and dental care. That was over and above our premiums. Our total for payments and premiums came to $6,281 for 2008. Adding government payments to the insurance company the total came to around $15,000.

Where did all that money go? Well, if you pay attention when you go to a doctor's or dentist's office you will note a sizable staff to take care of the paperwork involved in billing the insurance companies and collecting from the patients. I haven't been in insurance companies' offices, but from the photos I have seen of some of those buildings the staff shuffling papers must be humongous. None of the people in these two sets of offices do a thing for the delivery of health care. To the contrary, some people are employed by insurance companies to deny health care.

Recently, I had to take care of a relative's paperwork. The paper involved for her health plan, medicare and bills must have been close to a ream each year in her file. How much was necessary for the files for the health plan, medicare and the doctors' offices is anybody's guess.

The last figures I read some time ago indicated that in western European countries with single-payer health plans somewhere between $5,000 and $6,000 is spent per capita on health care that, according to the World Health Organization report in 2000, was much better overall than what the United States provided. In that report, France was No. 1, Italy No. 2, we were No. 37 and embargoed Cuba was 39.

Bill Bodden makes a very good point when he says: "Those of us with the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) are fortunate, indeed, but it isn't a wonder plan as many would like to believe."

Exactly, Bill. FEHBP, the federal health plan isn't a Cadillac plan, but most Americans would feel fortunate to have it. We can't all have "wonder plans" and pay less than we are now paying. That is pie in the sky. But most Americans would feel quite fortunate, indeed, to enjoy the Federal health plan, particularly if they knew they could go to sleep every night knowing they could never, ever lose that coverage again, even if they lose their job. As a federal employee, the chances of you getting laid off are rather slim, but most Americans aren't feeling as secure as you right about now.

Your example of costs is very useful. You and your employer are currently paying about $14,000 for your health care. Under the Wyden proposal, you would receive a $15,000 standard deduction (with an additional $1,000 for each child you may have.

The standard deduction is indexed for inflation, though labor argues that health costs rise faster than inflation. We beg to differ -- once we give health consumers true bargaining power with the insurance companies, we should keep health costs in check.

Josh. So its a deduction so for a whole year we have to pay the "full amount". What if we cant even us making over the Lordly sum of $80,000 per family. What then? Tax deductions mean crap in the weekly budget.

These health care debates are ridiculous. Without staunch border control, one can forget about any pie in the sky cost containment projections. ER visits will remain high, Hospitals offering ER services will continue to shut ERs down so as to quit bleeding their balance sheets to death, (especially in the teeth of the paltry reimbursements offered by current government run and financed plans), and everyone else will have increasingly crappy services to pay for the care of folks who are not even part of the polity.

Go ahead and maul health care with a bill passed in under two months, all the while talking about taxing current benefits or throwing a eurostyle VAT out there, atop a monumentally stupid carbon tax scheme, atop monetizing the debt to keep bailing out the UAW and otherwise spending willy-nilly money that none of us has, and see what happens in the midterm elections.

Looks like a troll just sailed in.

"Exactly, Bill. FEHBP, the federal health plan isn't a Cadillac plan, but most Americans would feel fortunate to have it. We can't all have "wonder plans" and pay less than we are now paying. That is pie in the sky. But most Americans would feel quite fortunate, indeed, to enjoy the Federal health plan, particularly if they knew they could go to sleep every night knowing they could never, ever lose that coverage again, even if they lose their job. As a federal employee, the chances of you getting laid off are rather slim, but most Americans aren't feeling as secure as you right about now."

"We can't all have "wonder plans" and pay less than we are now paying. That is pie in the sky."

Josh, you're cherry-picking. You ignored my reference to the WHO 2000 report that indicated other developed nations have better plans than the United States at half the cost. For the record, I'm retired.

I am interested in the part of the Wyden plan that requires employers to offer a salary increase to match lost health care premiums. Will the new salary be increased by 108% of prior health care premiums to reflect that the employee will pay 8% FICA/FUTA on any increased wages? Will the employer be required to eat the employer share (also around 8%) of FICA/FUTA? Will employers be able to avoid paying employer 401K contributions on increased salary as might otherwise be required in some corporate plans? Or will 401K plans need to be amended to decrease employer contributions to avoid the employer being hit twice?

Medical coverage is currently a voluntarily provided employer benefit subject to termination at the will of the employer except where union contracts are in place. I am highly skeptical that a law that requires employers to increase salaries by the amount of what were previously voluntary employer provided health care benefits can pass constitutional examination. And even if "legal", what prevents a non-public non-union employer from tossing more expensive current employees in favor of less expensive entry level employees who won't have the mandatory health-care premium "boost" in wages?

The financial basis of the Wyden plan seems like fantasy to me, but presumably Wyden has been aided by captains of industry to come up with his ideas, so I guess I will shut up and watch to see what happens.

Trolls won't stick around to argue the merits. Putting a bunch of "progressive" buzzwords on terrible fiscal policies still makes for wrongheaded prescriptions to supposedly pressing public problems.

Three primary things make health care expensive and changing system of payments or merely mandating coverage addresses none of them.

First: is the situation I mentioned earlier. Many hospitals have been taken to the brink by federal laws mandating that anyone who shows up at an ER gets seen, regardless of ability to pay. Eventually hitting upon the most cost effective way to staunch this open sore on their balance sheets, many hospitals have simply shuttered their ERs.

Second: Too much spent on the infirm and the elderly. A replacement system that isn't ready to admit that it is going to "ration" health care for folks who are breaking down physically and mentally or for those with self inflicted maladies like rotted livers, enlarged hearts or burned out lungs, is not going to withstand the sob stories of people who get "heartlessly shafted" when they thought that "healthcare was a right." Not only that, but to not bankrupt the nation even further than they already are, Democrats are going to have to turn into a preventative health Stasi, probably through another massive and intrusive bureaucracy.

Third: Lawyers make practicing medicine way more costly than it should be and fear of the bar causes market and science distorted outcomes in patient care and health planning. Without major reform visited upon the John Edwards of the system, there will still be great amount of money annually burned on CYA medicine.

And there is nothing at all amusing about President Obama's demand for a bill this summer. That is plain reckless.

However, I respect your views and hope that you will accord mine some open-minded thought.

Josh this kind of dishonesty gets tiring. Despite your empty, windy rhetoric, the record of you and Ron, including Ron's corrupt health care plan, is one of continuous contempt for Oregonians. The one thing I can say is that constituents calling your office either challenging Ron's position or just wanting to know what the hell it is on any number of issues, are consistently met with a "no comment", "give us your address". In due time one receives a boilerplate form letter, typically one that in no one addresses the specific point or question of the caller, saying no more than "I hope you'll vote for me". Long ago, Ron became just another empty, egotistical politician whose main goal is to further his own career.

I can remember how not too long ago, and as late as earlier this year Ron thought he could get away with demeaning and sneering at those of us who support single payer or the least a public plan option. It is divine justice that events have quickly changed due to our failing economy as increasing numbers of even those fortunate enough to still have a job lose their employer-sponsored health insurance. He's been caught on the wrong side of the debate now that the people and employers overwhelmingly want reform that gets the corrupt insurance industry out of the relationship between us and our doctors. I love how Ron (and I'll bet Josh) must think this smug ignorant quote from his own defensive, paranoid ad actually sounds intelligent because, in his own words "I'm Senator Ron Wyden and I approved this ad because I won't let DC lobbyists stop health care reform ...":

"when you got a health care plan that is being attacked by insurance lobbyists and some DC labor unions, you must be doing something right!"

First, as only a few in the MSM have noted in passing, the statement is a lie and you and Ron know it Josh. The ad he's responding to is by Oregonians, through the Oregon labor representatives they have elected, that states the position of the majority of us (including those of us who aren't even in unions.) It is not the "DC labor unions" bogeyman that you and invoke in a disreputable ad hominem lie, just like the Republicans Ron actually is playing ball with on this plan do.

Beyond that, there are very different reasons between the reaction of the insurance industry and working people AT THIS POINT in the debate that Ron has chosen to run this disgusting ad. Whatever lip service the insurance industry paid in the past, and without running any critical ads I'll note, the insurance industry now is hardly out there being visibly critical, and they find a lot they like in Ron's plan that leaves them making all the money. And those who have far more knowledge about health care reform effort than you make the mistake of arrogantly assuming aren't out here as this ad shows, remember well their recent attempt to undermine the whole debate and keep Baucus and Wyden locking single payer advocates out of the room? That was their "concession" that they would guaranty issue IF (and ONLY IF) the Congress would sign on to Ron's corrupt little idea of forcing everybody by law to buy private insurance (this was while he was still sneering at advocates of single payer and public plan in his own town hall meetings and his recent ambiguous backpedaling to keep his job.) Working people and the uninsured have long recognized Wyden's plan is an attempt to make us permanent captives of the insurance industry.

I'm pretty sure I remember my bible lessons about 1st Kings 3:16-28 that both mothers thought Solomon's solution of cutting the baby in half to settle the dispute was a bad idea. That didn't make it a good idea. You and Ron are just arrogant DC political hacks Josh and we don't you selling out our interests any more. You and Ron owe Oregonians an apology for this scurrilous ad and then Ron needs to step aside in 2010 so we can get a real Democrat in there who actually respects and defends the interests of we average Oregonians.

Senator Wyden's bill has not one, but two "public option" provisions in his proposal, though he is very much open to a responsibly-funded national public option if it is accompanied by true reform. First and foremost, his bill offers a glide path for states to enact their own public option and receive the required federal waiver from the Secretary of HHS. Then, his bill also requires the Federal government to step in and put in place a public option if individual states don't have adequate options and competition between plans to offer consumers. On both a public option and state flexibility, his proposal does what the Oregon Health Fund Board and Gov. Kitzhaber asked Senator Wyden to do.

This paragraph of Josh's statement also contains a number of misrepresentations, although I'm sure he believes us average folks wouldn't be informed enough to note that.

1) Ron's plan does not actually include any public plan option and in the past Ron has in fact has not supported that. This is why Josh in slick-talking DC fashion using the carefully framed "public-plan" provisions From an April 23, 2009 Lewin Group report by John Shells, we find the proper context and framing of Wyden's plan:

The HAA does not include a public plan at the national level, but does permit local area Medicaid-only health plans to participate in the exchange. In many areas of the country, public plans have formed around public hospitals and clinics at the local level that compete for enrollment under state Medicaid managed care programs. These entities would be permitted to continue as one of the health coverage options offered through the exchange. In addition, the HAA provides a federal fallback plan in any state or region that does not have at least two private plans offering coverage.

2) In other words the HAA is stacked every way it can be against even a state or region offering a credible public plan open to all. This is hardly a "glide path" in the Josh's contemptuous DC doublespeak.

3) Josh's final point of DC doublespeak "On both a public option and state flexibility, his proposal does what the Oregon Health Fund Board and Gov. Kitzhaber asked Senator Wyden to do" is similarly at variance with the reality. In Oregon, advocates including the Kitzhaber's Archimedes Project at various points in it's quixotic history, have been quite active pressuring the OHFB to include a public plan open to all as an option in their proposal. The OHFB substantially caved, partially in response to political pressure from the industry Ron works with, and partially due to the lack of any contrary support from other Oregon Democrats including Ron against that industry, and recommended the idea be seriously studied. They gave no formal requests to Wyden in the sense you suggest Josh. The legislature has similarly been resistant to the wishes of the public and agreed to direct the new Oregon Health Policy Board to

12(L) Develop and submit a plan to the Legislative Assembly by December 31, 2010, with recommendations for the development of a publicly owned health benefit plan that operates in the exchange under the same rules and regulations as all health insurance plans offered through the exchange, including fully allocated fixed and variable operating and capital costs.

Note that the charge here, weak as it is, is to develop a public plan option that would be available to all through the Exchange just like any other plan without any other constraints or triggering conditions. That is, Ron's plan with the provisions a public plan could only be offered as a Medicaid-only health plan (only open to people who currently would be Medicaid eligible) or in the form of a federal fallback plan in any state or region that does not have at least two private plans offering coverage would in fact be an obstacle, if not outright prohibit what the OHPB has been directed to at least produce a plan to create. Ron is pushing a plan that is completely contrary to Josh's outright lie that "On both a public option and state flexibility, his proposal does what the Oregon Health Fund Board and Gov. Kitzhaber asked Senator Wyden to do."

Josh, with the scurrilous ad and the attack on labor, you and Ron are rapidly becoming the shame of Oregon and Oregon Democrats in this time when we have the rare opportunity to finally fix our health care system. It's becoming clear that not only are you and Ron on the wrong side of the debate and history, but that he in fact could derail what is in the best interest of us all out of a mix of ego and misguided ambition but continuing to fight for his plan and undermine informed advocates through the kind of misrepresentations we see here.

We the people need to send the message now that Ron either needs to abandon his plan and get on board with a single payer or at least a genuine public plan option, or that we need to replace him with a Democrat in the primary who will. I don't expect "Pin Stripe Oregon" to be the place where we the faithful core of the Democratic Party can send that message, but we should all note that the comments we see form many in this thread are an important peek into a powerful desire out here to see real Democrats emerge who will re-assert real Democratic values. It would be create if labor could get behind a challenger to Wyden that the rest of us could help propel to victory in the primary and then in November 2010.

Here's something I'd like skeptics of Senator Wyden's plan to consider: Some European countries, such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, have achieved universal coverage (and much lower costs than the US) with significant involvement of private insurance companies. The key is getting the regulatory framework right so that insurance companies are competing on cost, service, and quality, not on denying coverage.

No country's insurance system is exactly alike, and all have pros and cons. I wish people participating in this debate would be less stuck on exactly what type of system and more focused on what are the criteria we want to judge proposed reform by. Slogans like "public plan" and "cost control" are not much help to me. We have a public plan now called Medicaid which doesn't serve the poor very well at all. Cost control will require changing the way we pay for medical care, not just the entity that is paying for care. These are all difficult problems and we should be able to discuss them rationally and with open minds.

The key is getting the regulatory framework right so that insurance companies are competing on cost, service, and quality, not on denying coverage.

That's right but it's kind of meaningless: The kind of regulations that are operative in those countries are at variance with our cultural history of American corporations and with American jurisprudence on the sociopathic obligations of American corporations under our legal system and our Constitution. The regulation and form of corporations those countries have simply are not relevant in the US.

And they don't compete so much on cost, service, and quality to the patient in a general sense, but on how efficiently they can deliver the strictly regulated services the government is able to require them to deliver under the aforementioned cultural constraints and stay in business under the economic constraints those countries. In a word, to one has to be very careful to comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges when look at components of those other examples of corporate (third-party) health insurance.

For those who haven't seen this, they can test Wyden's plan for themselves against key human rights values:

New Report Casts Exclusion of Single Payer Option as a Question of Democracy and Human Rights http://www.nesri.org/Press_Release_Single_Payer_Assessment.pdf http://www.nesri.org/Single_Payer_Human_Rights_Analysis.pdf

You can decide if Ron and Josh are on the right side of history and what we stand for as Democrats.

There is another point in Brian Collin's comment that ordinarily I would say is simply one of not understanding the obligations of those making points in a political debate, but the overt snarkiness of his last comment in which he lazily shifts the responsibility from himself to others to be informed (Slogans like "public plan" and "cost control" are not much help to me. We have a public plan now called Medicaid which doesn't serve the poor very well at all.) leaves me feeling less charitable:

Here's something I'd like skeptics of Senator Wyden's plan to consider

Brian, the skeptics have no obligation to cut Ron any slack. He's proposed the plan it's his job to defend it or suffer the consequences to his personal reputation and his electoral ambitions. The burden is on proponents like Ron, and apparently lazy people like you who passively defend the health insurance industry as you have done here, to prove the corporate forms and the power relationships between the industry and representative government that are essential to making those systems work can exist in the U.S. In fact, you actually have to go even further and disprove the skeptics legitimate position that those very features in other countries which are essential to making a third-party payer system work are not possible in the U.S. The burden is on you and Ron to make your case, not the skeptics and we owe you no slack, only to evaluate whatever case you put forward. If you don't put any case forward, you lose.

And you're comment about Medicaid further demonstrates a passive deceit on your part. Medicaid is NOT even close to a public plan, or a single payer plan, as currently under discussion. It is a plan which is both stigmatized and kept weak by being shuffled off from the federal level to the states (actually, kind of like how Ron wants to undermine the public plan option). The goal of public plan and single payer advocates is to fundamentally reform the system and eliminate both of those underhanded, industry-supported strategies to sustain the private insurance system, with public plan advocates recognizing a public plan could just be the first step in an even longer process of reforming our health care system to be in the best interest of the public.

Your lazy characterization of public plans and Medicaid possibly belies a personal value structure that is fundamentally at odds with that which is articulated in the report I cited above testing single-payer systems against human rights principles. The obligation is on you, if you care to be in the debate, to demonstrate the values that inform your position, to state a position that conforms those values, and then to prove it indeed does conform to those values. Skeptics owe you nothing except the chance to make your case on those points. They certainly don't owe you any slack in considering your case.

The same is true for those you view to be skeptics of Wyden's position and I think the objective evidence is that they have more than met that burden.

"Those who say that single payer is the only acceptable option will only put off the time when this can happen. The public option is the doorway to single payer..."

If single-payer is the goal, why detour with something else to delay getting there? And, why risk getting stuck on that detour?

"Here's something I'd like skeptics of Senator Wyden's plan to consider: Some European countries, such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, have achieved universal coverage (and much lower costs than the US) with significant involvement of private insurance companies. The key is getting the regulatory framework right so that insurance companies are competing on cost, service, and quality, not on denying coverage."

This is valid up to a point, but my understanding is that there are differences between European and Japanese and Taiwanese insurance programs that provide better health care systems than what we have in the United States. I don't believe those non-U.S. insurance companies purchase politicians in the same way that their American counterparts do. Wyden, Bennett and Obama were all beneficiaries of generous campaign donations from the insurance industries (opensecrets.org). The "key for getting the right regulatory framework" is campaign finance reform.

Well, single payer is the obvious choice, and anyone with a brain or even if you haven't got a brain but you've been to Canada or France or . . . forget it, if you don't know this, it's useless to list. Obvious, obvious, obvious.

However, let's suppose that somehow single payer didn't exist.

Then let's examine Wyden's rhetoric about "Cadillac" health plans.

What this means is that working people bargained away pay raises and other contract considerations in order to get decent health care. Now they are being attacked for that BY DEMOCRATS.

This is the equivalent of Reagan's "welfare queens" except that it is coming FROM DEMOCRATS.

Now unions have gone from 35% of the workforce in 1945 to just under 9% today. Much of this, in my opinion, is their own fault.

Simply put, they made a Faustian bargain after the Second World War to accept capitalism, to accept "pure and simple unionism," "business unionism," and Samuel Gompers' "more," when that meant - for the most part - more for their members. Then they didn't get behind the Civil Rights movement to the degree that they should have. Members (many of them) were seen to resist fair housing provisions. And of course there was the unmitigated disaster of George Meany and the lack of opposition to the Vietnam War when a united front between students and labor would have meant something.

Here in Portland, lots of local union blunders that fall in line with the categories of the above paragraph. I'll never forgive the teachers for not going out on strike when the school board illegally fired the janitors, Taft-Hartley be damned. So . . . I agree, now when the unions need some moral authority, there's damn little in the bank.

Still.

Where does Wyden get off demonizing labor, a group that has supported him with money and volunteers over the years, to score cheap political points that are entirely unwarranted, by yelling that health benefits that people bargained for in the most difficult of circumstances should now be taken away because Wyden needs the political cover to get a two or three Republican votes in the Senate? Labor earned those benefits, and not by sitting on their ass, either. Labor earned that with sweat and tenuous job security and hard physical labor and constant takeaways and layoffs and little cover from their Democratic "friends."

So, no, I don't think the Democratic party and Ron Wyden in particular is in a position to criticize labor over their "Cadillac health benefits."

God, I can stand our enemies. It's our so-called friends that make me throw up in my mouth.

Skepticism is an essential quality for citizens opposed to abandoning the nation to fascism; that is, a government in alliance with the corporatocracy. And skepticism is appropriate for any pronouncements from Wyden and his staff. He is no progressive.

Common Dreams has an interesting article on myths associated with the Canadian health care system: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/06/07-0#

Josh, for whatever reasons, you've missed the point(s) of my post. I never said anything about who would be paying more or who would be paying less.

I said that Wyden's attack on "Cadillac" health care plans of unions was the equivalent of Reagan's racist "welfare queen" rhetoric, that it was unwelcome, that it was profoundly misguided, and that is was an attempt to score cheap political points against people who had stood by him in the past to get a few Republican Senators who loathe unions as a part of their catechism to join him.

You never responded to any of this.

Then you quoted "the great" Les AuCoin, the same guy who was stumping here a few weeks ago for Pam Knowles, tool of the business community for the Board of Education. He didn't give a very good account of himself then. So pardon me if I question his bona fides at this particular moment.

I've come with my own quotation, from Pete Townsend. "Meet the new boss . . . same as the old boss." The title of the song is the theme of the post.

For those who haven't seen this, they can test Wyden's plan for themselves against key human rights values:

New Report Casts Exclusion of Single Payer Option as a Question of Democracy and Human Rights http://www.nesri.org/Press_Release_Single_Payer_Assessment.pdf http://www.nesri.org/Single_Payer_Human_Rights_Analysis.pdf

Uh, yeah. . . . An excerpt:

Health care reform proposals can be measured against human rights standards, which guarantee a health care system that is universal, equitable and accountable to the people.

Specifically, the human right to health care requires that hospitals, clinics, drugs, and doctor’s services must be accessible for all, available in all areas, appropriate to needs, and of high quality for everyone. Health care must be financed and delivered in a non-discriminatory way that enables the participation of individuals and communities, provides access to information and ensures transparency, and has effective mechanisms to hold both the public and private sector accountable.

In short, the ideal "human right to health care" is economically illiterate.

If single-payer is the goal, why detour with something else to delay getting there? And, why risk getting stuck on that detour?

Bill, since I'm first and foremost a single-payer advocate, I think you and I are on the same side of the issue. I even agree intellectually with your point here.

But as a tactical matter I think a public plan option makes some sense and so I'm willing to argue for that also. The reason is this: I believe that the battle to get a single payer plan could take as long as combined time of the fight to enact a public plan and allowing market forces to take us to single payer starting once we have that public plan option. That means a public plan could give simply give us a head start towards actually delivering health care more sensibly, and we might save some extra lives along the way.

Everybody knows that is what is going to happen if we get a public plan option and that's why the insurance company and the Republicans Wyden has chosen to work with instead of Democrats, starting with Grassley, have drawn the line at a public plan option rather than single payer. The difference is that the Republicans and Wyden can make all sorts of untrue bogeyman arguments and claims those bogeyman argument make it politically infeasible against a single payer plan. The only argument they can make against a public plan option is the venal one they want to sustain the unfair market advantage of private health insurance companies, starting with their anti-trust exemption. That's a lot harder for politicians to defend and keep their seats. If the playing field were genuinely leveled with a public option that is simply allowed to compete fairly, we will have final concrete market proof about the health care coverage we want.

I still am calling my representatives including Wyden and telling them I want single payer. But I also let them know that the only chance they have of barely hanging on to their job, if we all get serious and hold the politicians accountable by voting them out, is to give us a public plan so all Americans can cast their own vote for their own single-payer plan by selecting the public plan option. And to let them know everybody I know is more then ready to work for, financially support, and vote for a challenger in the 2010 primary who will give us that chance to cast our own vote. I've never seen anything like that readiness to vote for change. It eclipses the much vaguer "change" theme 2008 election in specificity and sense of absolute sense of necessity.

It's hard to watch friends and family members die, be disabled, or simply much sicker, longer than there is any possible justification in the current system without saying enough. I think that's what's happening to a lot of people as the economy tanks and they lose jobs or just lose some or all of their health benefits and who didn't initially believe Sicko's message it could happen to them. I think that message people have had enough is what Merkley first and now Wyden is feeling, the people are through with them if they don't just shut up and give us the health care reform we want.

Ron has always been a politician who tries to run quickly to catch up with the parade and make his way to the front where he makes a big show of being the leader, so there is some slight hope he'll do that now. I am not holding my breath though. Josh can make all the excuses and dishonest argument for Ron he wants, but the people have already decided and aren't listening anymore to that kind of political doubletalk. They will vote him out in the primary if someone comes forward and labor does their part to stand up for working people. It's not clear whether the dead shell that is the DPO will support the candidate who actually supports the supposed key stated positions of the DPO, rather than sticking with Ron who doesn't.

In short, the ideal "human right to health care" is economically illiterate.

Of course Boats is an example of the kind of pig who simply makes an blank assertion that is utter nonsense on it's face and without any further argument which would be thoroughly discredited immediately. Every other advanced nation, starting with our neighbor to the north, has a functional economy and health care system which scores high on this scale, and whose health care system continues to deliver superior outcomes to our system even in these tough economic times.

Your an ignorant jackass Boats. Even so, once we fix our health care system we'll still make sure even jerks like you have decent health care because it's the right and humane thing to do.

The difference between our RESPONSE ad and the AFSCME attack ad is ours happens to completely true and devoid of scare tactics.

Of course, DC weasel that he is Josh didn't answer the point Wyden's ad is pure propaganda starting with the argument the point "just because both mothers didn't thought cutting the baby in half was a bad idea doesn't make it a good idea". WWeek's RoW also was propagandistic in that they cited an unnamed source (The Lewin Group) without citing the broader sweep of Lewin Group reports against which Ron's plan doesn't look so good.

You're a broken down, deceitful political hack Josh. Nothing more, nothing less.

Pig? More like a realist. Canadian medicine is a parasitical free rider on the innovations made every year in this country. From advanced scanners, to surgical innovations like arterial stents, to pharmaceutical advancements like tPA following heart attacks and strokes, exactly none of them come from Canada, they're just used there, maybe, if one is lucky.

I know that few progressives shed a tear for the unfairly wealthy Natasha Richardson's untimely demise, but in part, Canadian health care killed her. The provincial health system there has no helicopters at its disposal for a shot at a life-saving medical transport. At least had Richardson been a more deserving soul, like the wife of a yeoman farmer growing rapeseed for biofuels, she'd be just as dead from the primitive trauma system's lack of speed.

If you take a serious spill on Mt. Hood, either Life Flight or the Oregon National Guard out of Salem will ride to the rescue on the say so of a medic in consultation with a remote physician. Say bye-bye to that rapid trauma service in any future beggar thy neighbor system, and hello to myriad other medical degradations large and small that no amount of non-medical technocrats and ideologically driven anti-capitalist jihadis can fully foresee while meddling with one-seventh of the US economy over the enormous span of two and one half months.

Here's one answer to people like Boats who lives who spin their strange mix of lies and misrepresented facts about systems like Canada that don't remotely prove what they claim.

The deceit in Boats raving is about the full timeline and circumstances of Natasha Richardson's death:

1) Natasha fell and 911 was called within minutes to arrive at 12:43PM.

2) Paramedics arrived at 1:00PM and Natasha refused treatment.

3) At 3:00PM, a second 911 call was made and paramedics arrived at 3:09PM.

4) Paramedics treated her for 30 minutes and transported her in a 40 minute drive to the trauma center.

So in fact, the need for emergency transport was as a result of her decision to initially refuse treatment and then only at some point after she was receiving emergency treatment did things go badly. It's not quite the story of a failed system that can't respond to a quick chain of events that ONLY a life flight could have averted as Boats tries to imply. There are plenty of places right in Oregon where a life-flight to a significant trauma center would be on a par with this and take longer than the patient has.

Compare that supposed failure of the Canadian system that isn't what Boats represents it to be, with what happened to Diamonte Driver in the U.S. system that Boats is trying to defend, dishonestly and pathetically, where transport is not an issue.

Reality speaks for itself. Like I said before, we'll still make sure even misanthropes like Boats get health care, we just need to ignore their ravings in the debate as we work on fixing the system.

I may be overlooking it, but when I just went to FactCheck.org, I don't even see a feature post in which FactCheck.org has labeled the ad "misleading" and half-truthful or that even addresses the AFSCME ad at all. I looked because FactCheck.org typically doesn't get involved in state politics, which is what this fight is about. Don't know what gives there, but one has to wonder about this supposed "debunking" Ron's supporters point to as a lynch pin of their justification for their laughable ad.

If that's the best defense of Ron's propagandistic ad and the basis for smearing labor (a constituency on the health care issue Democrats should be able to count on) that you and WillyWeek can point to Josh, it's clear Ron's political career is already as over as Norm Coleman's. Oh wait, Coleman was a co-sponsor of Wyden's bill (signed on 10/1/2007), along with a several Blue Dog Democrats and a number of right wing Republicans (Trent Lott, Lamar Alexander, to name just two) and one other Republican Senator who also lost his seat.

Josh: You might want to get your act together. Your credibility on this issue is getting to be about as low as it was when you were touting Hillary Clinton for president and putting out that piece of trash for Wyden to defend Israel's massacre of Palestinians in Gaza earlier this year.

How about a link or date to the factcheck.org article you referred to above?

Think Progress has a useful article on The American Health Choices Act at http://pr.thinkprogress.org/.

CBurr: I appreciate your link and am sure others will too. My criticism of Mr. Kardon stems from his practice of making statements and not defending them when they are shot down or admitting his statement was in error. He made a claim above that it wasn't possible to get better care for less money. I contradicted that with a reference to other developed nations having higher ratings on the WHO year 2000 report while they paid somewhere around half per capita of the U.S. average. There was no defense of his claim or admission of error. That is the same game he played for weeks during the Democratic primaries. I find that sort of thing offensive and the letter from Wyden's office on Israel and Gaza to have been an insult to the intelligence of independent thinkers.

John McCain's/Ron Wyden's plan is as awful now as it was during the Presidential campaign.

The proposal to give everyone $10k salary bump to go out and buy insurance ignores the fact that millions are uninsurable and won't find it available.

Also, medical costs were completely deductable from taxes until Reagan's 1986 removal of middle-class tax breaks. Why not restore that instead of continuing to increase the tax burden on wage earners?

Ron Wyden is a terrible senator and I hope we get a decent Democrat to run against him in the next primary.

"Also, medical costs were completely deductable from taxes until Reagan's 1986 removal of middle-class tax breaks. Why not restore that instead of continuing to increase the tax burden on wage earners?"

My understanding is that medical costs are deductible if you itemize.

"My criticism of Mr. Kardon stems from his practice of making statements and not defending them when they are shot down or admitting his statement was in error."

This is like throwing any old BS at people and hoping some of it sticks and works as a con job. In other words, it shows a lack of respect for the people you engage in debate.

Huffington Post has an interesting article: Fixing Health Care Does Not Require a "Bi-Partisan" Bill -- It Does Require a Public Health Insurance Option at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/fixing-health-care-does-n_b_212410.html

See also Consortium News for a related article: 119 Million Americans Must Be Wrong at http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/060509.html

Look, may I make a suggestion? Unless you know this guy Josh (I don't) and have some special axe that needs grinding, why don't we lay off the ad hominem attacks on somebody who's not an elected official who posted here. He didn't address my points either and that speaks volumes.

No, it's Wyden who is the subject of the editorial and the one who is making the proposal. Isn't it Wyden himself who deserves the criticism? (and yes, I know he's come in for his share here, just saying that piling on this PR guy is useless, he clearly does not have the bandwidth or policy ammo to engage.)

When you saw the YouTube of the recent "TownHall" meeting with Wyden and Dean, or at least heard accounts of it, didn't it turn your stomach? I mean, didn't you hate these tactics when George W Bush was pulling this kind of stuff - faking the town hall format, shutting out the other side, arresting the left, holding $1000 dollar an invitation "discussions" as preludes to the meeting? (OK, to be fair, with Bush it was $25,000 "discussions, but still . . . )

Is this what we organized for and voted for in November?

If you would have been told in October that you Wyden and Dean would be pulling this kind of stunt, that the Democratic party would be organizing to keep even the DISCUSSION of the only rational alternative, single payer, out of the mix, and that now the real action was going to be whether DEMOCRATS would allow (!) there to be a "public option" . . . if you knew then what you know now . . . what questions might you have asked? What demands might you have made?

Who can run in a Democratic primary against Wyden on this issue and beat him? Because I'm ready to give money and knock on doors for that person today.

Before 1986 Medical costs were directly deductable from your income taxes. Now medical deductable after 7% of your AGI is subtracted. For many people, that's no deduction.

OTOH, you can put your money into a Health Saving Account--which I did and LOST $1200.00 TO MY EMPLOYER when they refused to return it to me. I ended up paying twice for the same medical care with NO PLACE TO GO to get my money back.

Before 1986 direct deductions included:

All interest payments for any purpose including car loans, credit cards, etc. No taxes on disability or unemployment income. No taxes on death insurance payments. Direct deductions of any employee-related business expenses (now you have to subtract 3% of your AGI before deductions)

After 1986 the Social Security trust fund (and an additional 2.5% in taxes) were added to payroll deductions while an indexed cap was added to prevent the wealthy from paying their fair share.

Capital gains--HUGE cut in taxes Dividend income--HUGE cut in taxes

The answer's always the same--tax poorest members of the society.

How about bringing a little equity back instead of constantly attacking the wage earner with new taxes?

Ron Wyden will not be getting my vote this year and I pray there's a decent Democrat willing to run against him.

I very much appreciate Josh's engagement here. I don't think the personal attacks really do a lot for the discussion.

You're pointer to "WIRE.factcheck.org" is appreciated, Chuck, because the evidence now suggests this whole story stinks like a week-old fish.

First, a perusal of the hit jobs on that side project of www.factcheck.org shows they mainly deal with national politics. Some credible reporter needs to find out why Lori Robertson decided to spin a completely dishonest attack on a purely state-level political story.

Second, her statement about the ad being misleading is not only not proven in her piece, she confirms the factuality of the ad, but it is pure editorializing. The statement from the ads that she offers her opinion is misleading this:

a) The last thing we need is to pay more. b) But Senator Ron Wyden would tax the health care benefits we get at work — as if they were income. c) Taxing health benefits? d) That doesn’t make sense.

She confirms the absolute truthfulness of sentence b): Ron Wyden's plan would force employers to "cash out" their plans in the form of increased pay to workers and levy income tax on that. Sentences c) and d) are statements of values by the citizens how have the absolute right to express those values in the public square, and the concept of "misleading values" is irrelevant and utterly nonsensical.

This leaves sentence a). On it's own, it is another statement of values, and again asserting the very idea of "misleading values" is ignorant. Even in context, that there is some implicature about Wyden's plan is not true or false. Some one save, some would pay more, and most would pay more under Wyden's plan than other much more progressive plans if one reads Lewin Group reports over the last few years as I have.

So there is little here that even comes close to her obviously dishonest statement the ad is misleading. That key statement that she has made the centerpiece and echoed in her headline is pure editorializing, and she contradicts her own editorial assertion in large by the limited "fact checking" she herself does. For Josh to cite this given the questions about the genesis of this item and the content I think shows he is a person of disreputable character and shows Wyden has very poor judgement to put him out there to spin as he does.

"Look, may I make a suggestion? Unless you know this guy Josh (I don't) and have some special axe that needs grinding, why don't we lay off the ad hominem attacks on somebody who's not an elected official who posted here. He didn't address my points either and that speaks volumes."

Those of us who are critical of Josh Kardon may not "know" him in the sense of having met him, but we are talking about the Josh Kardon who has been, to put it mildly, concocting fiction to make points. Some of us learned how he operated, and apparently still operates, when he was the Oregon honcho for Hillary in the primary. He would attempt to make a point assuming his audience was too dumb to see through it. When that proved to not be the case and he was called on it, Kardon just moved on and changed the subject while repeating the same tactic. No defense, no admission of error, no apologies. If he offends people with his behavior he has no one to blame but himself. He may not be elected, but he is the one posting to this blog.

Why are you concerned about criticism of Kardon and not Boats, the troll? The latter got hammered for dispensing his fiction.

Even your anecdotal "answer" from a biased observer alluded to a lack of radiologists, slow treatment. lack of rural access, and necessary trips into the USA for advanced therapies.

Where exactly are advanced therapies going to be available after the golden goose is killed off in the name of egalitarianism? Mexico? India?

Everything you say is true, just a question of who is the puppet and who is the ventriloquist for me. But your mileage will surely vary.

Ah, you asked: "Why are you concerned about criticism of Kardon and not Boats, the troll? The latter got hammered for dispensing his fiction."

Well this guy Boats was, just as you say, simply a troll, as in "do not feed the ____." Really, what good is going to come from engaging a guy who says we should leave some people to just screw off and die? How do you reason with that subhuman level of immorality? You can either call that person names or be silent and hope s/he passes by and bothers someone else.

I'm ill-equipped to talk about people who don't see that we're all in this together. It's so basic. They're another species for me. Plus I thought that whoever it was who kept answering that even Boats would get health care in spite of his/her massive ethical shortcomings was eloquent.

So, in the words of Whitman: Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.

The ONLY BILL to support is the Kennedy Bill, or the "Affordable Health Choices Act". Not the Snowe-Wyden "compromise" with a "trigger".

Look, we worked so HARD last year to elect Progressives and Democrats. We want change. We get it, we're not stupid.

The Wyden bill is an insult.

I am still curious about the TV ad paid for by Big Pharma that endorses the "Wyden-Merkley" health care plan. Huh?

Glad to hear Wyden has been a closet public option promotor- but still looking for more evidence of this. Guess I will start pulling pins out of his voodoo doll if he is indeed going to come out for the pub op.

Baccus on the other hand just said no way to public option this very afternoon. Oh well, Montana is a red state anyway.

And Merkely told me on NPR talk show that "I would love to vote for single payer on the floor of the Senate." Safe threat at this point.

Wake up fellow single payer advocates. Public option is the best we can hope for- and it is going to be a scrap!

Public option is also, as was pointed out above, the gateway or slippery slope to single payer.

<h2>Kind of like bi now gay later.</h2>