"Designated driver for those drunk on power." I like that. Time to take away Max Baucus's keys and tuck McConnell into bed to sleep it off until 2010.

I wish he was pushing harder for the public option instead of negotiating with terrorists. We need his leadership badly.

Ron keeps referencing his own bill, but it doesn't seem to even be on the table. And he's excluded from the Gang of Six negotiations, so how is he a player?

"And he's excluded from the Gang of Six negotiations"

This is Obama's weak link.

Why are 6 people from such states as Wyoming, Maine, New Mexico, and Montana that represent a total of 3% of the population allowed to control the debate?

And with friends like Charles Grassley (Iowa) ....

Yeah ... why isn't "single payer" on the table? How long until "public option" becomes something else like, "private insurance co-op"? The President has to stick up for at least one of the things he ran on doesn't he?

Single payer doesn't seem to be on the table either, Bill, but the majority of commenters on BlueOregon support it and bring it up all the time. That is how the process works, you keep fighting for what you believe in.

Like it or not, Wyden is a player. He has 15 co-sponsors on a bill where every vote is going to count.

As for me, Senators, public option is not reform. Single payer is reform.

I'm shocked that there was no news coverage of this. I could have sworn that Seaside had its own weekly newspaper...

I like single payer too, but it has never been under serious consideration before Congress. In the primaries, nor general election it lost out. Dennis Kucinich lost, remember??. And some people are now confabulating that Obama ran on a single payer platform.

What's under consideration now with Senate and House bills is a bill with - the Exchange - insurance requirements with no exclusions, min. coverage, portability, etc. - subsidies for low income people - public option or co-op

I wish Josh Kardon could address this question:

With all of this heat and fury about public option, neither the House nor the Senate bills give individuals choice, only employers.

Here is where Wyden's "Choice Amendment" would be radically different and more politically popular. Howard Dean in his Town Hall before Netroots Nation said the most important aspect of selling health care nationally is choice, and unless Wyden's approach is adopted there is no individual choice for public option or private insurance, it's the employer's.

What's the status of the "Choice Amendment"?

Actually there was a lot of news coverage of Wyden's Town Hall (KATU, KATU, and KOIN). Maybe not as much airtime as other town halls because it was so civil, but there were hundreds of people there and while some obviously had different viewpoints it was much like the many other Town Halls Senator Wyden has had here in Clatsop County over the last decade differing only in that so many people showed up. The DAILY ASTORIAN had a reporter and a photographer and is likely to have a story in Monday's paper (www.dailyastorian.com)

It's not clear whose water Bill R may actually be carrying, but he's clearly not communicating that he is on top of the full story or a square-dealer here:

Ron keeps referencing his own bill, but it doesn't seem to even be on the table. And he's excluded from the Gang of Six negotiations, so how is he a player?

The truth is, Ron is on the Finance committee and the essential principles of his bill: 1) leaving predatory, blood-sucking insurance companies in complete control of our health care system, and 2) requiring by law that we give our dollars to those corrupt companies at excessive costs for the services we actually would get, are the heart and soul of what the Gang of Six are pushing for.

And don't forget our very own Senator Double Blue Cross signed the July letter with the Gang of Six too obstruct the process knowing full well that the mindless populist wingnuttery was just one of the things that would happen. (I know plenty of genuinely intelligent people who told his office just that as they asked just what kind of traitor to the Democratic Party he was for signing that letter.)

Ron Wyden and Josh Kardon really have sunk to a new moral low in this whole health care debacle that even the most cynical of us couldn't quite believe they ever would. As the lunatics have held the floor for the last week, including chief lunatic Grassley, one of Wyden's collaborators, Ron Wyden has not come out as a principled voice denouncing them, or Freedom Works and the health insurance industry that is inflaming them. Instead, this carefully manipulative tool of the insurance industry and Judas to the Democratic Party has repeatedly and shamelessly worked with right-winger Bob Bennett to capitalize on the turmoil by lying to us they are a voice of enlightened change that the Democratic grassroots now clearly knows they are not.

But make no mistake, Ron Wyden's core goals of forcing everybody into the arms of the insurance industry while thinking we can't see through his transparent claims this is "choice", is right in line with the rhetoric of Freedom Works and the crazies at the town halls. Ron Wyden is no friend of working people and neither are his morally bankrupt paid operatives like Kari.

What's the status of the "Choice Amendment"?

Well as a hint at what this is and isn't all about, type in "Wyden" and "Choice Amendment" to Google. And while you're at it, try limiting the search to "wyden.senate.gov" and his idiotic "www.standtallforamerica.com" site Kari runs for him. You'll notice a curious thing: Nothing comes up except for references to this "amendment" except in a few comments to blog posts by nobodies shilling for him.

What is really happening is that the fragmentary Baucus plan we have heard about embodies the key principle of preserving industry power and many of the specific key pieces to do that from the Wyden-Republican plan. All the "Choice Amendment" is, is a Republican-style propaganda trick by Wyden and Kardon of attaching a misleading catch-phrase to a few pieces of his plan that are missing from the Finance committee plan.

Ron Wyden, Josh Kardon, and the disreputable tools in our Party who have such disrespect for their fellow Democrats that they lie to our face about these guys have become an utter, disgusting disgrace to the Democratic Party nationally and in Oregon. It has become a clear and unavoidable moral question whether we should vote for someone who selfishly continues to undermine Obama and what we stand for as Democrats, or simply not vote that race if no better alternative is available.

And by the way Admiral Naismath:

I wish he was pushing harder for the public option instead of negotiating with terrorists. We need his leadership badly.

You seriously misread Wyden's utterly corrupt and deceitful character. His later comment in which he dishonestly spins the state of Medicare:

Q - Why not just expand Medicare? Isn't that easier? A - Oregon Medicare already in trouble; overall facing solvency problems.

Q - Medicare and social security are in dire straights. Shouldn't we fix those first? A - Medicare challenges are going to hit us soon. Need to make health care more preventative. Mine is the only proposal that doesn't pull hundreds of billions out of Medicare.

He doesn't directly pull money out of Medicare, but his HAA does pull all money out of Medicaid and give it to the private insurance industry (as we already inefficiently do with almost all Medicaid dollars in Oregon). And he hasn't got out there in the lead on advocating for unqualified, strong public option --- like allowing us all to buy into Medicare --- to make Medicare sound or on making part of such advocacy for that equalizing the Medicare reimbursement rates part of that so states like Oregon, whose demographics have shifted significantly since the rate schedule was first set, are treated equitably. But Ron is building support for his bill with some Senators who don't particularly support Medicare or place priority on equalizing Medicare reimbursement rates.

Now here's the direct answer to Wyden's attempt to deceive people that demonstrates why he is such a fraud: If there would be enough dollars in our economy going into our health insurance system for it to be based on private health insurance companies with their costs that are several times Medicare as he advocates with his HAA, then there is more than enough money to run a true Medicare-for-all-system that would render the current Medicare solvency problems moot.

But that clearly is not what Wyden's true political constituency --- which is not us average grassroots Democrats and Oregonians --- wants us to realize.

@Eyes-Wide-Open Grassroots Democrat

I don't know who you are, but your ad hominem personal attacks and name calling towards Sen. Wyden and Josh Kardon disqualify whatever you might have had to say that might have had value and seriously erode your credibility.

I don't know who you are, but your ad hominem personal attacks and name calling towards Sen. Wyden and Josh Kardon disqualify whatever you might have had to say that might have had value and seriously erode your credibility.

Bill R. - Here's the reality. In this fight for health care reform, most people are concerned with how they are going to get insurance for themselves and theirs, and how Ron Wyden and Josh Kardon are putting put insurance companies before them. While you satisfy your ego lecturing with that junior high school mentality, most of us will be focused on Wyden's and Kardon's deceit and double-dealing, including how they are out to undermine Obama on behalf of the insurance industry. Whether anyone has credibility with people of no significance like you is not even an issue.

Clearly, you don't know how to read. Go visit Wyden's senate site right now. The top story is the same as its been for weeks:

Actually Kari, your spinning is pathetic. My point was that even as people talk about Wyden's "Choice Amendment" or "Choice Option" there is no real there, there. I"m well aware what Wyden has on his web page. Depending on how one wants to look at it, he is utterly abandoning his main propaganda point for the HAA --- getting rid of our employer based system --- or he is simply doing what he can to still pursue his main goal of preserving the control of private health insurance companies.

For those of us I'm referring to in my comments to Bill R, some choice, huh?

For the readers who want to know the reality: Recall that in his HAA Wyden propose two main ideas: 1) He would abolish our employer-based insurance (remember that talking point about portability?). 2) He would force people to individually buy insurance themselves from the private insurance companies since he doesn't create a first class, robust public option. (The only public options he allows are when the private insurance companies abandon a market --- fat chance of that under a mandate --- or the HHS totally at its discretion grants a waiver to a state who wants to take on the full burden of a public plan --- I wonder how many takers we'll have for that. To convince us this was a good idea, and smugly thinking we are stupid enough to believe him, he claimed this would all work because our employers would give us all a big raise to buy individual insurance.

What has happened is that Blue Cross Democrats like him and Baucus have competed amongst themselves to show the private insurance industry who can screw us the American people the most. They all realized none of them could do better right off the bat then to force those of us whose employers don't provide us insurance to buy it from private insurance companies, so they all have adopted that idea.

Most of the Blue Cross Democrats aren't quite as dumb as Wyden, however. They know that the bit about relieving our employers of the role of providing insurance with the promise we are going to get raises (which we would have to give to the insurance companies anyway) could only fly amongst la-la-land of Portland metro-area wingnut Democrats. So they kept our employer-provided system (at least giving that nod to Obama), and, as we all know, they WILL also throw an employer pay-or-play mandate in the final legislation. (Can't throw enough gross or net dollars the insurance companies' way without that.)

So Wyden, figuring the angles, decides to maximize what he can gain by adopting the idea employer provided insurance with a pay-or-play mandate will remain in our system, and happy with the fact the Gang of Six fully embraces his goal of forcing everybody to buy insurance, decides to try to inject as much of the facade his original HAA in the plan as he can.

Since the proposals now keep employers in the game, he does a 180 from how he courted employers and Republicans with the proposal to get them out of the game, and totally embraces employer pay-or-play. He then heads out into crazy space to preserve the superficial version of the HAA, as only a Portland Democrat can, by proposing to elaborate pay-or-play details in ways they probably would be in any final bill written by any group of Blue Cross Democrats such as the Gang of Six, as if they were some radical new take on pay-or-play. He also proposing allowing employers to go the Exchange as if we and the Blue Cross Democrats wouldn't demand that if it would have any real meaning.

This of course is little more than embracing nutty Republican arguments about the "magic" of the marketplace, and in this case I do mean nutty and magic. First, in a pay-or-play environment, the same goal could be accomplished by simply including a requirement in the law that insurance companies can't offer any better price in the Exchange than they would too employers negotiating a group plan. Conversely, it's hard to make a market argument why an employer wouldn't get a better deal negotiating directly with all carriers for a group under any flavor of the current Blue Cross Democratic/Republican proposals than an individual negotiating as a group of 1 would get in the Exchange.

Of course, this assumes that all of the Blue Cross Democrats including Ron and the Gang of Six are honest when they say they are going to impose a level of coverage on insurance companies that is on a par with the health are people actually need. That may be a very naive and bad assumption, given the people like him, Baucus, Conrad, Bayh, etc. we are talking about here.

So Kari, next time don't be such an idiot shill for your boss and read more carefully.

During Sen. Wyden's interview last night with KGW the question of whether Medicare benefits would be reduced to seniors came up. According to Sen. Wyden, only HIS plan would ensure that seniors would not suffer a reduction in benefits. He claimed the other Democratic proposals would cause a reduction in Medicare benefits.

According to Factcheck.org: "Cuts to seniors' Medicare benefits for health care overhaul is outright false. None of the predicted savings - or cuts, depending on one's perspectives - come from reducing current or future benefits for seniors."

AARP: "None of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services." The president has stated repeatedly there would be no reduction in benefits to seniors. He has an op-ed in the NYTimes today which reiterates this.

Wyden also stated that he agreed with dropping the provision for end-of-life care. "Government should not be involved in those decisions."

He, in my opinion, totally undermined the Democrats and the president on health care reform in this interview.

What undermines Democrats on health care is the total absence of credibility.

Why would anyone but the ultra partisen who couldcare less believe that this new health care will be funded.

"None of the health care reform proposals being considered by Congress would cut Medicare benefits or increase your out-of-pocket costs for Medicare services."

Yet Democrats are claiming $500 million in Medicare savings/cuts will fund half of the new health care?

That's not credible.

The President has stated repeatedly there would be no reduction in benefits to seniors.

OK.

And Democrats claim there will be no loss of private insurance, no loss in coverages, no rationing and no deficit increase.

That's not credible.

An op-ed in the NYTimes does nothing to explain how this national health care gets funded or delivers services.

Further demonstrating the shady nature of this campaign is the now dropped provision for end-of-life care which many Democrats were telling us was not even in the bill. Yet now this "Government should not be involved in those decisions."?????

Further undermining the Democrats is the fiscal train wreck SS and Medicare are approaching without any Democrat plan to deal with it. One can only anticipate that Democrats will simply demand more taxes as the wreck unfolds.

Now, are we going to be able to deal with the funding crisis better or worse with a trillion dollar health care piled on?

Simply pretending it will miraculously save money in the face of reality numbers and history of DC politics is no better than relying upon the tooth fairy to pay future bills.

All the Blue anti-corporation, Blue anti-rich and Blue anti-capitalism rhetoric in the country amounts to nothing but noise.

Richard - You are so stupid, you don't even get that you and Wyden are actually on the same side in this debate in the key goal of making sure the private insurance industry keeps their boot on our throat and their hand in our pockets. Even if you are a lunatic libertarian who thinks you shouldn't have to contribute anything to society (just take what is given to you like roads, public health, fire service, etc), That's why he's only pimping for Republican votes for his plan, fear mongering about Medicare just like the right-wing shouters, and trying to deceive people with his bogus "Choice Proposal".

You don't have a clue about how the economics of the health care system works or the facts in this debate. Much less why we can only save Medicare, as well as dramatically improve the financial prospects for individual and small group practitioners giving us the only real choice that matters, our choice of doctors in private practice who can meet our health care needs. That choice can only happen and be fiscally sound when a sufficiently large number of us to come together as we want in a public insurance plan that can overcome the horrendously unfair competitive advantage --- against us --- of the criminally exploitive private health insurance industry.

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One has to feel a little bit sorry for people like Richard who really can't understand the the facts in the health care debate, and so can't do anything but spout the nonsensical, contradictory, inflammatory talking points of the corporate health insurance and corporate health care industry. In that respect of not having the first clue, they actually not so different from that type of Oregon Democrat who defends pols like Wyden and his kind in our state government (a group largely, but not totally from Portland-metro area la-la land). They just have different people with their hand up your backside moving your mouthparts.

So today Obama sold us out on the so-called "public option," thus ensuring that the hegemony of the insurance companies will continue unabated . . . indeed, it'll be better times than ever for the bloodsucking hucksters, since everyone will be required one way or another to buy their product. Wyden has done his corporate overlords proud. And for all of his apologists here on Blue Oregon . . . a hearty congratulations!

Of course, we have to be clear at this point that Obama himself hasn't said he's welching on his campaign promise. In this case it's Sibelius and the MSM is piling on because that's all the kind of morons who become reporters and editors these days can do. We saw this with Emanuel several months ago and now NY Times and others are trying to claim he's the guy who is fighting for the public option. Unfortunately, it is the nature of politics that administrations float confusing or seemingly contradictory statements out there as a tactic in a larger strategic plan. And Obama really doesn't stand out as any more skilled than the average, pedantic politician in that regard.

Also, for those of you who are disillusioned and use that as an excuse to give up, don't. It's important to grasp that many of us pointed out when he was running that: 1) His campaign was about letting people believe what they needed and his plan actually lacked any specific relevant details about the public option, just like most of his campaign platform. 2) His pro-corporate record tendencies are not all that different from the rest of the self-serving Democrats (He cites Joe Lieberman as his mentor, after all). 3) And once he got elected we would have to keep on his administration to do the right thing. This should not be seen as a disillusioning, disempowering turn of events, but pretty much just how we thought things would unfold. And this is just the work we knew we were going to have to do to get change in the health care system we can believe in.

So, at the bottom line, we can conclude there are two strategies one can do to fight for the right thing, a true public option, right until the final vote is cast. This means keeping up the pressure and reminding him he's just another double-talking fraudulent politician if he doesn't deliver. And that he's plain double-crossing all those folks who want to believe in him and who have said he's committed to doing the right thing, and specifically a public plan, he's just playing a careful game of chess.

The other thing one can do is put the pressure on Wyden to pull a Specter (one of the co-sponsors of the HAA) to change his position by appealing to Wyden's and Kardon's self-centered nature. Now is the time to let Wyden know that his double crossing behavior has motivated a movement to fire him in the next election. That movement should include marginalizing the DPO and it's jesters like Kari he thinks he can look to unless Woods-Smith and the DPO: 1) publicly censure Wyden and Kardon for betraying Oregon Democrats and Obama, 2) initiates a campaign to bring forth and support a true Democrat against Wyden, and 3) let it be known that Democrats are overwhelmingly behind the challenger in the primary against Wyden.

And don't buy the lie anymore that we have to vote for Wyden just because he is a Democrat in the general. Consider what has happened, honestly consider whether not voting at all or casting a vote for a third party candidate you really want to support wouldn't actually be the more honorable course. If Wyden wins on this, he's going to be finally and fully aware he doesn't have to care at all what we think about anymore and can, without hesitation, just be the Senator for the power interests he has increasingly devoted his office to representing.

Finally don't forget that this is also MSM just doing whatever they can in desperation to make a story. But to quote Edward R. Murrow from his 1958 speech to the Radio and Telivision News Directors' Association:

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.

If you want to hear another clear-eyed, clear-headed inspirational statement by Murrow that can inform the commitment we need to have now to rescue our health care system, and our country and state, from those who represents darkness, fear, and greed, listen to him reading his essay This I believe.

Eyes Wide, you've written some of the clearest, most fact-filled discourse I've seen on this blog. I hope you can be convinced to continue.

I hope people will also be moved (if they have not already) to check out Alexander Cockburn's analysis "Health Plans and Death Plans" at Counterpunch which can be found at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08142009.html

I hope it's not in too bad form to quote the two paragraphs most relevant to the points that (I think) Eyes Wide Open is making above:

" It’s [a national health plan] not going to happen, any more than Obama will nationalize the banks and tell householders to repudiate their mortgages. The insurance industry, the drug industry, the real estate and finance sector are the most powerful forces in the country. They’ve just got Obama to commit $23 trillion to their enduring welfare. They’re not going to surrender the treasure trove known as healthcare without serious blood-letting on the barricades. They own the Congress. Men like former Democratic senate leader Tom Daschle spring to do their bidding. So, Obama finally produced a timid compromise, whereby uninsured people would be herded under various health insurance umbrellas with “a public component.” Even if the health industry’s hired man, Senator Max Baucus, had not deep-sixed the public component, the insurance industry could swallow it like a python swallowing a field mouse. Though Obama sometimes confides that the public component of his plan is the springboard to full-bore single payer national health, this is transparent fantasy. In present political conditions, the publicly insured component would soon become a ghetto, offering minimal care to the indigent, and gradually shriveled into some sort of punitive maintenance scheme.

It’s sometimes argued that a decent single payer system would be functional to U.S. capitalism, since industries like the auto sector would be liberated from the burden of health costs. There are scores of decent policies that would be functional to US capitalism. But the soul of US capitalism is wedded to indecency. Consider torture and the death penalty. Critics of these procedures sometimes argue that they don’t work, or are inefficient. People spout out lies amid their torments. Innocent people die in the gas chamber and the justice system is injured in reputation thereby.. But the real allure of torture and capital punishment for the owners of the system is to instill fear and compliance precisely by the demonstration of vindictive irrationality."

Here Cockburn points out what divides faux progressives like Wyden from actual progressives like Bernie Sanders. Wyden's bill is transparently fictional. It subsists in an alternate universe in which the disciplinary function of capitalism is simply unacknowledged. It pretends that corporations and management and workers and the unemployed are all just one big happy American family. It's the Rodney King theory of healthcare: "Can't we all just get along?" Can't the shareholders of Aetna get a 25% return and the CEOs make $34 million a year and the uninsured have their pick of a bevy of great dental plans and we keep our regressive tax structures?

It's quite true that even though the cost of health care is crippling to corporations, there is a part of them that is loathe to decouple health care from employment since this would encourage worker turnover, and most jobs suck so badly that health care is a major factor keeping workers in their slots. On the other hand, if the reserve army of labor can be kept sufficiently high, and if the educational system can be sufficiently crippled, then worker discipline should be able to be maintained.

Remember the days when FDR and Hubert Humphrey claimed that the fundamental principle of the Democratic Party was that you had a human right to satisfying, well-paid, dignified labor? Seems like a long time ago when we stood for that, doesn't it?

Eyes,

You haven't figured out what you imagine.

While your screed ignored the points I made you managed to dream up something else to respond to.

You're a good demonstration of what many find offensive and without credibility in this debate. But your self image is astounding.

"Also, for those of you who are disillusioned and use that as an excuse to give up, don't."

This was the message of Pres. Clinton in his Netroots speech. Some things that are true now were not true in the mid-1990s, it took a lot of time. But any accomplishment is better than none. And, the victors write history. I saw the spech on CSPAN and thought it was Bill Clinton as his best, partly because it was an older-but-wiser, "this is what I have learned" speech.

So, for instance, if there is a bill passed this year that does improve health care coverage for Americans but it is not all everyone wants, it still will be an accomplishment Democrats can run on.

Republicans keep saying "well, if this doesn't work, Republicans might have an opening like they did in 1993".

I've got news for them--Boehner is nowhere near as charismatic, intelligent, or a movement leader like Newt Gingrich. Democrats have only been in control since the 2006 election, unlike 1994. And if they can't recruit better candidates than Zupancic and Mike Erickson, everyone could hate Democrats and might still not vote Republican.

Besides, we saw what happened after the 1994 election, and some people have long memories.

Did anyone see the CSPAN coverage of Arlen Specter at Netroots where he and later Sestak took questions (a primary candidate forum for US Sen. nomination)?

Specter seems to think it is possible Grassley and Snowe vote at least to provide the 60 votes to keep debate going, if not for the final package.

Folks, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

It was a hot issue in the early 1980s for states to pass an Agent Orange bill. Oregon became the 2nd state to do so. It was not just grass roots lobbying efforts. A Ways and Means co-chair was sitting on the bill. The money was stripped out of the bill to be added later. W & M no longer had jurisdiction, and the bill got out of committee ---and once on the floor only got a few no votes. Oregon became the 2nd state (after Texas, would you believe?) to pass an Agent Orange bill.

I know many people have their hearts set on public option.

I wonder if another idea might get farther: regulate health insurance companies to the point they will wish there was a public option. No pre-existing conditions or lifetime caps as excuses to drop people. Financial transparency--perhaps rewarding them for meeting a standard like Cleveland Clinic. Etc.

What is the goal--to give competition to insurance companies and end their excesses? Or a litmus test on public option, even if it doesn't have the votes?

Unless someone can magically make Ted Kennedy and Robt. Byrd healthy enough to be in the Senate for every procedural vote, Democrats only have 58--including Joe Lieberman, Bernie Sanders, Ben Nelson, and all sorts of assorted other Democrats.

As someone once said, Republicans are the talking points party, Democrats are the party which debates issues.

Joe Hill wrote:

" So today Obama sold us out on the so-called "public option"

Why does this surprise anyone, since he's not been honest with anyone about his objective?

Obama wants a single payer plan.

But instead of honestly endorsing it during his presidential campaign and afterward, he proposed the stealth method of destroying the insurance industry by introducing a 'public option'.

People were smart enough to see thru his deceit.

He sold you out to save his political skin, just like he was willing to sell everyone else out.

LT wrote:

"No pre-existing conditions "

Possibly you don't understand the nature of insurance.

Should the widow be allowed to call her insurance agent and take out a life insurance policy on the dearly departed?

Should you be able to take out a policy on the house that just burned down, or the car that you just wrecked?

I was at the Seaside Townhall, the first I've ever attended. I discovered that I like Ron Wyden, even though I was predisposed to dislike him, mostly because I can't get a response to emails or letters. I found him oddly more conservative than most of those in the audience.

However, he did not say he was the designated driver for those drunk on power in DC. It's a good line, but he's not the type to denigrate his colleagues for a laugh. He did explain that he had no intention of running for president and that he was, so to speak, the designated driver while others were free to go off, run for other offices, and neglect their congressional responsibilities.

<h2>He also did not correct the woman who claimed that France and the Netherlands, where she received excellent health care, were examples of the single-payer system she'd like to see in this country. Neither have single-payer.</h2>