Kari, you forgot to add that these plans will collect taxes for 3-4 years without paying out one dime (to paraphrase Obama) in benefits.

I welcomed true healthcare reform, this unfortunately is a parody of what could have been meaningful reform in both healthcare costs and healthcare delivery.

So, taking single payer off the table day one, and all the compromise was between Dems. It accomplished zip with the other party?

Why were enough Dems to sink it against real health care reform? Doesn't "reform" imply that there is a system in place?

Literally, "Health Care Reform" would be new lege to improve this bill. So, I'm all for HC Reform too!

How 'bout some fair play and cover the first person that gets carted off to the federal pen when they are found to be a member of the new class of undocumenteds?

The Congress may not solve many problems but, man, can it create criminals! Correct me if I'm wrong, but improper insurance->MM outing->Feds counting seeds->death penalty for over 100,000. Are we to believe that if my physician prescribes life ending drugs for me that the Feds won't do things like exclude him as a provider under the new system?

One small step for health care. One giant leap for the police state. This is inspirational on xmas eve. In fact it's inspiring me to take all the xmas gifts I've bought back and exchange them for an assault rifle. I will never consent to participate in this crap. I will likely die in a hail of bullets. Subtract me from the 20,000,000.

These guys in the Senate and House have no more qualifications to understand how this will impact the economy than any other Joe on the streets. This is assuming their intentions are good. There is no historical precedent that this will work to our benefit or that it will achieve any objectives stated. We don't even know if the objectives stated are really the objectives or if this is just an insurance company bailout.

At this point the conventional wisdom is that this bill will look pretty much like the Senate bill, which seems quite plausible. That's no reason to give up yet. Funny things can happen in conference and after before a final bill is passed by both chambers. That doesn't appear likely, but the grassroots still has a chance here to let Congress know they are headed in a very bad way.

Assuming the conventional wisdom is proven correct, s soon as our president whose charisma now increasingly comes across as striking immodesty signs a final bill, it's time to head to court with a class action lawsuit against just the mandate, in part because this is an infringement on our rights of freedom of association which includes who we associate with financially. And a petition for an immediate injunction. Followed up by an aggressive campaign to defeat all incumbents in 2010.

It's already been proven beyond any reasonable doubt in the mind of any individual with average critical thinking skills (which the comments objectively show excludes many of the folks here who mistake professing belief with argumentation) that this reform will worsen the quality and availability of health care for almost all Americans. This is no more difficult to demonstrate then to point out the objective fact is that the first and foremost real-world principle of this reform is to put the legal obligations of corporate America to put it's bottom line first ahead of the medical interests of patients

The mandate is not like requiring auto insurance, courts uphold that requirement because driving is a privilege and people can opt out of that.

The mandate is not a tax, only the penalty if you don't comply with the mandate law is a tax.

Kill the unconstitutional mandate part in the court, which is the predicate for the tax (if you don't do this, then you pay a tax) and for now there isn't even a legal tax anybody has to pay in place. And since the Democratic majority in both chambers and the President have asserted than all the supposed benefits in this "reform" would not work without this unconstitutional mandate, if they are correct rather than just trying to mislead, the whole thing comes tumbling down.

If and when right triumphs over corruption in this way, Congress, under a non-negotiable demand from the American public, then has to go back to the drawing board. That's why it's essential to vote out all incumbents in 2010. Repeating the same dysfunctional behavior over and over, but expecting a different outcome is a key feature of psychiatric pathology.

Contrary to what our failed Congress and President say, they are not finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people, since this bill does little of the sort. It can be the end of a chapter in the dysfunctional collapse of our government due to the kind of people who have hijacked both parties, however, if people of good faith join together in a class action to actually get real health care reform we all can believe in.

Right now neither party is offering solutions to this tyranny. We can vote out incumbents are we going to get change we can believe in? Or just more meaningless slogans. We need to vote for people who have honest backgrounds. People who don't lie. Very rare birds, but that should be our criteria. Americans vote for people who sell them apple pie, then turn around an give them rotten apples. This happens every election. Candidates who tell it like it is, and never lie, get the cold shoulder. "...we Americans are suckers for good news." Adlai E. Stevenson The fact is Obama lied to us, most of these guys lied to us and they still have followers because they wear blue jerseys. Its no different with the Red Jerseys.

I do think some of your other proposals such as court action may be very realistic however.

Heh. At first, I read that as "Bunning, R-KY, missed the boat".

But, of course, all 40 Republicans missed the boat on this one.

Heh. At first, I read that as "Bunning, R-KY, missed the boat".

But, of course, all 40 Republicans missed the boat on this one.

And all 60 Democrats too. But of course, it's not really about whether the boat is real at all, is it, Admiral?

Good luck voting out Bayh, Nelson, Lieberman, Landrieu, Pryor, Lincoln, and Baucus. The only way they are leaving is if replaced by a right-wing Republican. Those Democrats never lied to us - they always held themselves out as conservative Democrats.

I am unbelievably angry over the reality of our national political situation - not at Earl, Peter, Wyden and Merkley - and plan to work my ass off for whichever Oregon gubernatorial candidate pledges to take the Sanders-Wyden state waiver provision and pass single payer or public option for all.

On the previous health care thread Jeff Alworth steered us to a chart from the Wonk Room at Think Progress. It indicated WITH reform there would still be 23 million people left uninsured. That would be about one out of every seven people.

Now let's look ahead to Christmas dinner tomorrow. You have seven people sitting down at the table to eat a Christmas feast, except one doesn't get to eat. He or she is out of luck while everyone else gets fed.

That's what this health bill is like. It's obvious what it would say about those six people tucking in to their meals while the seventh doesn't get anything to eat. So, why shouldn't it say the same about the American people if they go for this bill that leaves others in trouble?

And what does it already say about the politicians the American people elected to govern the nation from the White House and Congress?

Regardless the debate (among only the Democrats) to get a final bill, we will see increased political activity in 2010. More people will be motivated to work against the people who have created this "solution to our health care problems."

People are fed up with the 'politics as usual' on display with the health care legislation fiasco. My guess is that fewer incumbents will be reelected in 2010 than in any recent election. Unfortunately, I think Galen is 100% correct.

I was involved in contract negotiations for a local union and one of the key things was knowing how much leverage you really had. As banquet waiters, that was very little. I concentrated in getting work conditions into print - stuff management didn't fight as much because it wasn't obvious to them how it would affect them financially. Anyway, it struck me recently that the American People are in the same position more or less as banquet waiters. We are the servant class while the federal government officials are the hotel managers. The hotel is owned - bought and paid for - by the stockholders: Wall Street and the corporations. Management doesn't work for us - it works for them. That's just reality. To believe Congress is on our side here is a bad misconception. Our leverage really comes down to the things they have to do to pretend they're working for us. That's where we have to operate. You could argue that banquet workers don't get to vote out the hotel managers, but in a way, neither do the American People. Why? Because the replacements will still be working for Wall Street and the healthcare companies just like the last group. In that sense, we should take the improvements here and be realistic. You have to know how much leverage you really have. In fact, we should be leery right now because some of the so-called good things could vanish in the last weeks before the final vote. And the stuff that is over-the-top we should fight. Pick a few things and raise holy hell about them. And if they pass we should just refuse to go along. Resistance does work - even banquet waiters have power in numbers.

  But the main thing is we should ask ourselves why we tolerate a system where our representatives are so busy representing someone else? Hotel workers don't own the hotel but I thought this was supposed to be our country.

Let us use logic and reason and look at what we want. I want equal access to medical care for all. I want education available for everyone at least through college. I want clean water and skies and clean energy. I can have some of this, but some of these things are not available using government. Government cannot bring us prosperity. Only individuals can. Social Security and Medicaid will both be bankrupt before you know it: http://www.newsweek.com/id/199167 So while I know I want medicine available to everyone. Logic and reason tells me the government has a very high rate of failure in these areas. Now if we just use emotion I say make everyone pay 100% until everyone has everything they need to be happy and crime free. Logic and reason though says that won't work and will create the opposite impact. Should we go with reason or emotion here?

The is like watching an LSU/Tulane game. A bunch of bigoted old white guys, sitting around doing punditry as to why "their side" is better, not noticing that both sides are made up of poor blacks that they wouldn't give the time of day to if they met as strangers.

The contest is completely bogus. It's the systematic abuse of an activity invented for that abuse. Funded with our taxes.

So, anyone ready to consider parliamentary representation yet? Ready to recognize the futility of fighting the tyranny of the majority via majority consensus?

How would you like to live in a neighborhood where everyone had to agree on the same floor plan for their home? This is one reason the cost of gov keeps growing. One sure way to pull it off, is add every feature every buyer wants. What would the final floor plan look like? A lot like this bill.

Posted by: galen | Dec 24, 2009 10:26:26 AM

Right now neither party is offering solutions to this tyranny. We can vote out incumbents are we going to get change we can believe in? Or just more meaningless slogans. We need to vote for people who have honest backgrounds. People who don't lie. Very rare birds, but that should be our criteria. Americans vote for people who sell them apple pie, then turn around an give them rotten apples. This happens every election. Candidates who tell it like it is, and never lie, get the cold shoulder.

They get outright derision! Go back to last cycle and read what was said, right here, about Kucinich and Nader. Two of the most honest blokes you'll ever meet and these local hacks that have sold their souls, unable to imagine actually telling the truth, spit venom every time those names were mentioned.

Kudos to gen Y for calling BS on gen X's "if it doesn't feel good, lie" mentality (and all the boomer's who have decided it's pretty effective...that means you Sam).

Interesting points regarding tyranny of the majority. Worthy of further study on my part.

I do think though if we looked at all legislation from the point of principle in the origin of rights, that is ask ourselves are we somehow empowering government to do something we as individuals cannot lawfully do and then forbid this type of action we would see unprecedented freedom and prosperity. When we see the state as a tool to implement our social ideas and empower it to implement them we open the door for someone else's social idea to be implemented as well. This is what gave rise to Nazi Germany and why many Red Jerseys call Obama a Nazi, never mind the hypocrisy of such statements.

The founding fathers did see the need for some collective rights, but not to the degree we are experiencing them today. We are now in a situation where a vote means wining the spoils or another's labor and for the other person it could mean losing everything including their freedom if they do not comply. This is not how our Republic was intended to work.

"They get outright derision! Go back to last cycle and read what was said, right here, about Kucinich and Nader. Two of the most honest blokes you'll ever meet and these local hacks that have sold their souls, unable to imagine actually telling the truth, spit venom every time those names were mentioned."

On behalf of those of us who spoke favorably of democrats such as Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich and who were on the receiving end of the venom from the Democrats, thank you, Peri.

I think the Founding Fathers didn't foresee the power of electronics to get a well-crafted lie out there. The powers that be have this down to a science. They know almost to the dollar what it'll cost to get a certain percentage of the public to believe something. That's why horrendous product malfunctions are not addressed sometimes because it's cheaper just to continue on settling with the casualties and save the overall image by saying things like, "GE, We bring good things to life" instead. Isn't it insidious how that's drilled so deeply into your heads?
The biggest question of our times could be whether we continue believing things we see on television. Until then, it is far easier and cheaper to screw over the American People and then just tell the public what a wonderful thing has just happened. That is what we are about to hear on this Senate deal. If we really got the truth about what just occurred, we'd probably storm Washington, D.C. - as long as there wasn't anything good on TV.

a very significant change for many young people either currently unemployed or employed but without health benefits.

and perhaps a consideration for those considering inflicting more bundles of joy on the world.

Kari, you forgot to add that these plans will collect taxes for 3-4 years without paying out one dime (to paraphrase Obama) in benefits. Kurt, you're parroting one of the handy right-wing talking points. But it's wrong. While some benefits are delayed, many will happen immediately.

Nice propaganda effort there Kari: Make what sounds like a substantive asssertion to counter a critic, throw in an ad hominem attack to prejudice the matter, and then reference another source which actually does not provide support for your clear implicature that the strong form of your assertion holds.

In other words, Kari, you are one of those "low-information" progressives who plays to "low-information" progressives. If you actually had a point to make, you'd have listed the benefits that actually kick in immediately and those that kick in by 2014 so people could rebut your implicature that these are significant in way that makes the bill whose passage should be supported rather than criticized.

The privatized health insurance movement is one more massive bailout for FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate corporations).

Time is rapidly running out. The massive bailouts, stimulus packages, giveaways and short-term debt, along with imperial wars we can no longer afford, will leave the country struggling to finance nearly $5 trillion in debt by 2010. This will require the United States to auction off about $96 billion in debt a week. Once China and the oil-rich states walk away from our debt, which is inevitable, the Federal Reserve will become the buyer of last resort. The Fed has printed perhaps as much as 2 trillion new dollars in the last two years, and buying this much new debt will see it print trillions more. This is when inflation, and most likely hyperinflation, will turn the dollar into junk. A backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually and psychologically for collapse, will tear apart the social fabric, unleash chaos and violence, and strengthen the calls for more draconian measures by our security apparatus and military.

Kari, dan thanks for setting me straight. Yes, I was parrating what I had heard on the news. So I appreciate knowing that some benefits will be coming forward in the first 3-12 months of passage of a final bill.

Still and all, this is a far cry from what Health care reform should have been. I especially am repelled by the feds now telling me how to act towards my seemingly adult children. Just because they 'can' stay on my plan until age 27, does that mean that I must allow them to?

"It is the most significant American legislative triumph in at least four decades."

The Senate vote on health care reform is probably the nicest Christmas gift I'll get. "

And our overall national health care system will remain the worst in among the industrialized nations. If that qualifies as a triumph I hope they don't get around to committing more blunders.

In the WHO Year 2000 report the U.S. ranked 37th for attainment and delivery. On infant mortality we came in 29th - if I recall correctly, behind Cuba despite that small island having to endure a hypocritical and cruel embargo.

It isn't that we can't do better, but as a nation we have our priorities all screwed up. Lots of money for Wall Street but chicken feed for Main Street. Trillions for illegal and immoral wars but limited funds for the well-being of citizens.

Kind of makes a fella pround, doesn't it.

Galen, you gotta be kidding me!

I want equal access to medical care for all. I want education available for everyone at least through college. I want clean water and skies and clean energy. I can have some of this, but some of these things are not available using government.

Huuhhh??? NONE of those things are available to all, or even most, EVER, without government ensuring fairness and equity. Clean water and skies and energy? That's brought to you only by We the People, acting for the common good.

Government cannot bring us prosperity. Only individuals can.

Double huhhh??? Individuals can bring prosperity for only themselves. Individuals bound together by common interests--because we share things (like water, air, etc.)--working together on behalf of that common interest--that's government!

We've had since 1980 to test the "government can't solve problems--it is the problem" theory. We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this theory is and was an epic FAIL. All it was, in the end, was a gigantic ruse to trick Joe-sixpack that by letting the foxes guard the henhouse, bust his union and make it infinitely easier for the bosses to become billionaires (instead of just multimillionaires), government would "get off his back" and everything would be great. Where's Joe now? Un- or under-employed, trying to compete with cheap overseas labor so he can make ends meet by buying cheap overseas crap at WalMart. Oh, and since Joe lost his union health benefits, if Joe's sick, tough shit.

What, won't the private sector come to Joe's rescue? Of course not. That, Sherlock, is government's job. Only now, because the millionaires became billionaires, they've been able to buy the government, so that it serves their interests. Not his. Not ours.

But that's the government we've got. Until that changes, I'm still waiting to hear from the "kill it" contingent, WTF makes you think we can get anything better? Our corprotocracy will only do so much--by ranting and raving do you think you can turn it into a representative democracy? Please tell me what you're smoking. I want some.

And to the "throw the bums out" crowd, uh, Earth to crazies. Throw the incumbent Dems out in the primary with more progressive Dems? All for it. Knock yourselves out. But beyond that, if you don't think having Rs back in charge will be worse, I have a couple of moments in history for you, and a premonition which I really hope won't come true. (But remember, GWB as a candidate was laughed at by most Dems.)

1994 2000 2004 President Palin

Happy Holidays!

Government cannot bring us prosperity. Only individuals can.

You might want to tell that to Ariana, because that's her take, post Copenhagen. They failed, now what are we going to do?

A list of immediate benefits under the Senate bill can be found on this page: They're substantial, and Kurt's quip above does in fact echo a right wing lie. They include, for example: *$5 billion in subsidies for uninsured with pre-existing conditions starting 90 days after enactment *$10 billion (thanks to Bernie Sanders) for Community Health Centers starting in 2010 *Medicare drug price discounts starting July 1 2010 *Tax credits available immediately for small business towards paying premiums for employees.

So Dan, are you sure you really want to defend these as substantial or progressive? Or as reasons to support the bill? Well, so be it:

1) The subsidies are to buy provide more corporate welfare to the private health insurance industry - as virtually all Medicaid and SCHIP benefits are paid out in Oregon (because few doctors accept open-card) and many states. Kind of like paying Paul to be robbed by Peter and paying Peter to do it. A public option which would be the insurance system for these current income-based plans would buy more health care for qualified recipients from private doctors of their choice --- a choice they don't have right now in most cases since so few doctors accept the Medicaid/SCHIP/OHP private insurance plans and fewer doctors feel any economic pressure to accept open-card.

Had just one Democrat or Sanders made a stand this week, or for that matter had one Democrat or the O actually picked up the fight, ever, in this whole charade over the last several months, we'd be in a very different debate right now. And that is a debate that would have ended a minimum with a public option because the public pressure mobilized would have been so intimidating to our elected leaders they would have done the right thing despite themselves and the industry.

Don't forget what the French people told Moore, they had a good health care system because the government was afraid of the people. Just look how spineless Democrats wimped out to give us what we got as a result of the totally manufactured "tea party" protests. (The populist discontent on the right and left is very real, as Democrats are fixing to find out, it is the events to channel that were manufactured.)

2) The private health centers are largely to provide preventative care for a growing population of people who don't have access to doctors of their choice because they can't afford private insurance. And because in our current private health insurance based system doctors can't afford to locate in areas where there are lots of people who can't afford private insurance. They still can't with this reform, hence the need to create more Federally-subsidized CHCs.

CHCs are a last ditch response to a health care system in crisis, so providing more money to fund them, while necessary, is an admission there is little interest in actually reversing the crisis. It's hardly something to point to proudly. (There are condescending elitist dimensions too, but I'll get to that.)

3) The Medicare drug savings only partially offset the cost outrage that is Medicare Part D system in which Republicans, who never held a filibuster-proof majority, got enough Democrats to vote for cloture to pass. That is, even though Democrats had 60 votes, they did not actually undo Medicare Part D and allow the government to use it's full negotiating power to buy drugs.

Oh, I forgot, the O made a deal with pharma to not do that. And the Senate Democrats agreed to not undo that deal, only put a little lipstick on it to distract the public.

And oh yeah, for those who are a little more interested in being "high information" than Dan, on Nov. 24, 2003, the 3 NW Democrats Cantwell, Murray, and Wyden all voted along with Baucus, Landrieu, Lincoln, Reid, Conrad, Ben Nelson and 13 other Democrats to invoke cloture on the DEMOCRATIC filibuster of passage of Medicare Part D. (Recorded vote 457 in the 108th Senate). Remember what I said about supposed "progressive" Democratic and stalking horses.

4) The tax credits are also to divert money that could have enormously bolstered a public option to instead enormously bolster the private health insurance industry. Of course, not every doctor accepts every insurance plan, so this also contributes to even more putting the choice of which doctors you'll have access to in the hands of your insurance company and your employer. Particularly since the whole bogus premise of the Exchange is that companies will compete on service, which means they'll all have to negotiate their own deals with doctors and doctors will decide which deals are in their best interest. If we had a public option, the economics would be such that a) most doctors would accept it, b) most employers would offer it to their employees, and c) most people would choose it because it would offer more advantages in terms of cost and choice.

So overall Dan these immediate benefits really are about breaking a broken system even further, and only a fool would argue that even better versions of these benefits shouldn't be the minimum of any reform. While they are meaningful to those who receive them, it is only because those who talk positively about them are not out to really fix the system, so these are all the recipients are left with. They hardly are things to be pointed to in support of this bad bill because they brightly highlight just how bad the bill and the way in further reinforces our corrupt system really is.

Furthermore, do you really think pointing to the Democratic Policy Committee website is a credible argumentation tactic? Particularly when it comes to arguing for the bill on the basis of which "benefits" start immediately and which "benefits" don't, since it's the balance between the two determines whether this is a good bill or a bad bill? A website in which the many talking point papers for the bill omit any reference to timeline and concentrates all information about timeline in a single document? A website in which the clear propaganda intent is to present the benefits in a way that readers can't easily evaluate them in context of the order in which they would be experienced, and as compared to the immediate negative impacts to benefit the private health insurance industry?

You see Dan, and Kari, we know you elitist progressive types, examples as you also are of "low-information" progressives, tend to think those of us work-a-day progressives who get our hands dirty in the trenches of the health care reform fight and other genuinely progressive activities in our personal time don't really know what's going on.

But we know a lot more than you think. Up close and personal experiences with the predatory private health insurance system, and with the public systems that we currently do have that the medical care, insurance, and pharma industries economically and politically knee-cap in covert and overt ways, tends to be a real-world education that teaches one how to see right through all the BS.

"Should it become law, the measure would constitute the biggest expansion of federal health care guarantees since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid more than four decades ago." A SUMMARY OF THE 2009 ANNUAL REPORTS Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains challenging. Projected long run program costs are not sustainable under current program parameters

So, the current programs we have are not sustainable, but we're somehow going to manage to fix this and cover another 30 million people with healthcare?

WTF?

Uhhhh...Gary, how much has this bill been discussed, all told? Was that part of the debate?

Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?

"Uhhhh...Gary, how much has this bill been discussed, all told? Was that part of the debate? Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?" -Z

We can't afford the socialist programs we already have! Doesn't this tell you everything you need to know?

So I guess your position is that only the already privileged are entitled to medical care, and that the less privileged should wait until your perfect system is established before they get to see a doctor. In the meantime, I imagine you also oppose any organizing intended to address the currently inequitable distribution of resources in our capitalist society.

Well, since the Senate bill we’re discussing is, after all, a Democratic bill with no Republican support, and the majority actually did, you know, draft the bill and the manager’s amendment, then, yes, going to the source is a reasonable place to go for the text and details of the bill – especially in a convenient and shortened form.

And there we have it, a typical, thoroughly intellectually dishonest cheap shot, and an evasion, with the intent to completely misrepresent what was said. And I don't think anybody can point to anything in Dan's comments that he is not smart enough to have done this unintentionally.

Dan's prose, and outright intellectual dishonesty therein, drips with the condescension of privilege. He didn't deal with the sole point of my comment that these benefits are needed at all because of we have a broken system that privileged Democrats and Republicans actually both are quite happy with. And that this bill is just offering crumbs intended first and foremost to maintain that broken system. Instead, he dishonestly tried to present the picture that those how dare to say the emperor is naked don't care as only people of inherent privilege and social status like him do, with the elitist sensibilities that we should pleased they have deigned to care and be happy with whatever they offer that come with that. Of course, in that we actually learn about the quality and nature of Dan's values and beliefs, not anyone he would try to diminish in such an underhanded way.

With regard to Dan's evasion about his reference's lack of credibility. The text is available from THOMAS, and some of us apparently have read far more of both the House and Senate bills then people like Dan if he is casting about for talking points in this way. Far more objective analyses that deal with the real debate about the merit of the bill, as contextualized by the timeline, are found elsewhere. As already noted, virtually all of what is at the link Dan cites are just corporate Democratic talking points to propagandize for this bill. That DPC PR website is long on spin, in the form of carefully selecting and framing what in the bill it devotes most of the text there, and all but devoid of essential context. In particular there are virtually no direct references in the text to the timeline that would illustrate just how this bill really is about throwing crumbs rather than doing the right thing. Those crumbs are not even the minimum that would be in any acceptable bill and the fact that those are the entirety of the positive arguments for this bill is what's key.

Dan just picked up those talking points about the minimal favorable parts of the bill, out of context of the whole bill, that supports his frame of privileged condescension.

And, in case those of Dan's privileged mindset missed it, there is no advocacy in my comment that the crumbs in this bill not be accepted when they are available. Of course everybody should access any benefit to which they are entitled. But since those benefits are just crumbs intended to support a corrupt system there is no need to be grateful for only being thrown crumbs as this bill does. Or to be grateful to people with obvious superiority complexes like Dan who would align himself with the crumb throwers and make you feel like you should.

Dan's sneering, dishonest comments are typical of those who are trying to defend the this offensive Senate bill. They echo the frame and specific arguments of the lazy liberal, privileged, "opinion leaders" that the corrupted faction of the Democratic Party is now trotting out, and who, like Krugman, are stepping up to defend the status quo and their position of privilege in it that they realize may be teetering.

Merkely has a defense of the Compulsory Health Insurance Company Bail Out Act up at Huffington Post.

It seems to me that the legislation we ended up with ignores the fact that the US spends about a factor of two more than other OECD countries.

As this data graphic shows we are not getting a good deal on health care and, while the current bill may rearrange who pays for what, it does not address this international inequity.

A clue as to why US citizens are getting such a bad deal relative to citizens of other OECD nations is that all other OECD nations (except Mexico) have single payer.

<h2>We are in some serious trouble if this si the best that they can do.</h2>