You can find full medical coverage at the lowest price from http://ow.ly/18uv6

"arguing that the majority should use the budget reconciliation process to vote for a health care public option."

Great idea, especially since Medicare is running so well. If young Mr Merkley has a well-thought plan to fix Medicare (a bit more than a letter to a fellow Democrat), I'd love to listen to what he has to say.

"Great idea, especially since Medicare is running so well."

What do you suggest, Marx?

Scott, I don't know what Marx proposes, but the Republican alternative on the table is in Rep Ryan's budget outline to privatize Medicare and give all the seniors vouchers to buy health insurance.

That should be great - a bunch of health-care dependent and vulnerable seniors subject to the private health insurance market, administrative costs will rise ten-fold to cover inefficiencies and profits, and seniors will get (no added charge!) all the extra added stress to satisfy Republican ideology.

Oh, and the CBO projects that by 2021, the first full year of vouchers, the voucher amount won't cover the projected cost of health care insurance.

Yep, Marx, the Republicans really are problem solvers, aren't they?

Thank you Senator Merkley!

Good to see we have at least one democrat in the U.S. Senate.

Next make the GOP vote on that insane alt budget by GOP rep Ryan (the one that calls for gutting SSI & medicare).Set it for a vote right before the July 4 recess.

I like it. Go ahead and Ramrod through something that the public has stated loud and clear they don't want any part of.

It was already shaping up to be a good election year for Republicans. It just keeps getting better.

Since, like Clinton, Obama has refused to listen to market-based ideas that actually have worked when tried like Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan's proposals for health care change that were proposed and ignored years ago.

Nope. Democrats were given huge majorities and chose to try to govern from the extreme left and the voters pushed back quickly. So to recapture the middle now you want to push through a "reform" that ignores the deficit, grows Government and which the majority of the public don't want.

Please. do it right about, oh September or October. Right before the elections. I'm begging you.

"Democrats were given huge majorities and chose to try to govern from the extreme left..."

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Wake me when that really happens because I must of just slept through that in the last year.

Thank you Sen. Merkley! It's great to see that a freshman senator can serve the people first and not big pharma, big health insurers, and all the others who are always there trying to buy off elected officials.

Senator Jeff Merkley has proven himself a honest, and principled champion for the Democratic Party, and the Progressive Movement.

So where is Senator Ron Wyden on this, 202-224-5244 call him and ask.

Save the public option. Add your signature today.

http://savethepublicoption.com

BULLETIN:

Orrin Hatch is quoted today as calling Jeff Merkley "the most liberal man [sic] in the senate."

Congratulations Jeff!

KenRay writes: "I like it. Go ahead and Ramrod through something that the public has stated loud and clear they don't want any part of."

Tax Cuts for the corporations, and top 2% tax bracket that has put us into the deficits they are screaming about is the argument againsts universal healthcare that has by all serious analysis will reduce both our national deficit, but the crisis of healthcare in our nation.

The Bush Tax cuts were only passed thru reconsilation. Remember Dick Cheney's "deficits don't matter" comment to his Tres. Sec.? They could not spend the budget surplus left them in 2001 fast enough. He rationalized that Ronald Reagan proved it, but we stil have to endure Republicans, and so called conservatives rail about deficits.

Fact: Republicans have grown government far more than any Democratic leadership.

Fact: Democrats balanced the budget, and showed surpluses meant to make Social Security and Medicare solvent for ever within 8years. That's right, we would have Medicare and Social Security solvent for ever 2years ago had Al Gore been elected.

We'll see whose right about what the public wants. Vox Populi, Vox Dei. You all go ahead and keep drinking the Kool-Aid and we'll check back after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Pick some polls that are a little more recent or not sponsored by ideologues, ie. Huffington, and get back to me. I want to see the questions asked and the standard deviation of the sample, then I'll give it credence--for about one week until things change again. Otherwise it falls under the famous quote about statistics.*

As to the CBO report, the only way it reduces the deficit is through wildly optimistic projections that any reasonable person knows are unrealistic. When the TARP money was being repaid over the last year, the President and the Congress couldn't wait to push that money back out the door. It didn't get used for deficit reduction like it should have.

Yeah, fiscal discipline will suddenly show up. Maybe by the tooth fairy. And we can spend our way to prosperity. And deficits only matter when a Republican is in office. And whatever else helps you sleep at night.

And, by the way, I actually like Senator Merkely personally very much. I just don't agree with him on this. So don't bother with the personal attacks bit.

• "There are lies, Damned lies and statistics." Often attributed to Mark Twain, but actually unknown origin.

Gee KenRay your so witty when vasillating.

Ron Reagan's first SOU was such good comedy. He rails about how the deficit of $64 billion would reach 6 miles into the atmosphere were it a stack of $1 dollar bills, yet when he left that stack would have been 24 miles high.

Rachel Maddow has it right, the conversation coming from both sides of your mouth is cancelling itself out, and by November I'm going to enjoy the Schadenfreude like my frau's strudel. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!

I think by Schadenfreude you actually mean ennui with your strudel. Or so I believe.

For your sake you should hope your predictions are better than your spelling. It's vacillating, not vasillating. And you won't find it in my post, but thanks for playing and here's your copy of the home game.

The arguments about Medicaid vs. Private Insurance effectiveness can be summarized in a simple way - do you believe the goal of health insurance should be keeping people healthy or making money?

If you like making money, private insurance is the way to go and Medicaid should be privatized.

If you want people to be healthier, Medicaid is great, and should be expanded.

It's about what you value.

Spelling Error, that's your rebuttle?

vacillating - thank you.

"And deficits only matter when a Republican is in office."

Correction:

Deficits only happen when a republican is in office.

KenRay: "As to the CBO report, the only way it reduces the deficit is through wildly optimistic projections that any reasonable person knows are unrealistic."

Allow me to point out the obvious. I know it's plainly obvious to the insurance companies, but I'll help you with the concept.

If all adults 21yrs old and older were compelled to participate in a universal health plan, and in turn negotiate prices for services, and goods including drugs, then that enormous pool of insured, that us, would then have enormous sway with those prices.

The Republican idea of Medicare reform was plan D, which purposely prevented negotiating prices, a deal made behind closed doors. This was legislation that was written by insurance companies lobbiest behind closed doors and in secret that we to this day have not been told.

Medicare has a 3% adminstrative overhead compared to the average 18% seen in the private sector, and without the motivation of profit in the equation of medical coverage, doctors, hospitals, and drug companies can focus on quality services/products as a profit incentive.

Today, insurance companies in the guise of HMO's, and PPO's control health care delivery from insurance premium to services making it easy for them to inflate the costs from top to bottom and profit enormously at every turn. This is the disaster that we live with today.

I wasn't rebutting; I was being lightheartedly polemic. Just like my earlier post. I'm happy to rebut, though.

Republicans had much more to offer than the plan D program, including Congressman Paul Ryan's market-based reforms I mentioned earlier. But I understand it fits yoru agenda to pretend otherwise.

As to medicare, an unsustainable system projected to be out of trust in 2017 is the best you can do? Oh, and by the way, since you referenced the CBO report, here is a briefing by CBO on the big lie that the PPACA bill will reduce deficits. CBO & deficits.

When I referred to the CBO estimates to be wildly unrealistic assumptions, I was speaking specifically of the assumptions that Medicare's payments to doctors are going to be cut 20% next year as well as 40% in the next 10, or that congress will cut $464 million from medicare permanently. The first is an opium dream and the second is already being undermined.

So quit pissing down my back while trying to tell me it's raining.

I left in a misspelling so you can tit-for-tat!

Thanks for an entertaining discourse. Looking forward to the elections in November.

KenRay, just saying it's a lie does not make a lie of the CBO.

Curiously, the standard would be the CBO. We have lived under the private insurance enviroment for the past 30 years of un-restrained profiteering, and it's left us the laughing stock of the free world. That might be good by your standard, by not mine.

The assertion that privatizing Social Security is living in a world of your own, apart from our reality. Bernie Madoff may not be a clue for you, but watching Wall Street come to the taxpayer with their hat in hand should have done it for you. You would trust them with Social Security Trust Fund??

Remember, when capital gains was being taxed like other income, and a difference of just 3% in the top tax brackets produced a balance budget, and surpluses that would have made Social Security and Medicare solvent forever. So, privatizing the public's trust to those whom don't even trust themselves seems insane.

Does anyone have a good answer as to why Wyden hasn't signed on?

Now there's a good question, where is the Wyden?

KenRay: We'll see whose right about what the public wants.

I wouldn't be talking about other's spelling errors if were you. It's "who's", not "whose".

I would agree with Kevin, while defending KenRay's right to be partisan.

I would hope that some crack can be found in the "government is the problem, not the solution" mantra. I would hope that at some point the self proclaimed conservatives acknowledge that the government is of the people, and by the people.

The whole argument of vilifying government has erroded the vital need our democracy has for it's government.

In truth, the proposition that electing those who hate government the most to run government has been what we have been doing for the past 10 years. I think we all know how that's been working out for everybody, except of course the corporations, bankers, Wall Street, and the richest among us

When bush used reconciliation for his tax cuts it wasn't the correct thing to do. Merkley is equally as wrong.

But by all means go ahead and usurp the will of the people. I have not voted a straight party ticket since before Reagan. If this keeps up November 2010 and November 2012 should be interesting.

Posted by: Kurt Chapman

Usurp the will of the people?

Congress passed a plan, Senate passed a plan, it's in committee. How does that happen without it being the will of the people?

Reconciliation is done with a Majority, or the Majority of the People's Will.

Usurp your people is the truth!

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann just reported that Ron Wyden in the Support column for the public option.

And so far we see what the bullshit that are supposedly progressive Democrats:

As of 8:00PM, February 18, 2009, Murray, Cantwell, and Wyden have not signed the letter.

They thought delivering massive corporate welfare for the health insurance and health care industry was within their grasp. They had almost delivered a mandate that we all have to do business with the private health industry with no alternative of a public option. Now we'll have to see what they do next to protect the industry. (and so Wyden can keep paying Kari and Mandate Media.)

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann just reported that Ron Wyden in the Support column for the public option.

Wyden's office said he wasn't when called earlier today AND PCC didn't show it when they updated tonight.

'Wyden's office said he wasn't when called earlier today AND PCC didn't show it when they updated tonight.'

He hasn't sign the letter, but the whip has him as a supporter. I called their office this morning, and this afternoon and got a machine.

So, whom did you talk to? Where?

"He hasn't sign the letter, but the whip has him as a supporter. I called their office this morning, and this afternoon and got a machine."

Sorry, this is vintage sleazy Wyden and Josh Kardon. Get rumors or hearsay statements out there he's supposedly for something, in this case a public option. But he doesn't lift a finger do anything at all to actually work for it, including even signing a letter, and in that way and others works in the peculiar way of NW/Oregonian supposed progressive Democratic politicians to undermine and thwart genuine progressive Democratic positions. Until he signs the letter or the vote is taken so there is a record to hold him accountable, he doesn't get credit as a supporter.

By the way, do most here notice how they can call the office of any Senator during normal business hours, even one at the center of a specific issue, and get through to a live person with just a few minutes wait at most? But even when nothing is going on it's almost impossible to get through to a live person in Wyden's office, and if you do it's after a VERY long wait? Does anybody actually believe that many more people are calling his office than any of the other Senators? There certainly is a sense out there and the anecdotal proof that Wyden has so much contempt for his constituents (or is just so incompetent) that he doesn't even care to answer his phones well.

I challenge Wyden and Merkley, and all of the Senators and Representatives for that matter, to put the daily tallies they keep of the phone calls they get on their official websites. The web developers they hire ought to be able to put something together in about 2 hours to make this effortless. That would be right in line with the open government initiatives the White House and Congress claim to support (well maybe not so much).

And come on Kari, surely for as much as a top web development operation like Mandate Media is getting from Ron to build his slick campaign website and do extra PR duty for him, you ought to be able to get that on "Stand Tall for America". You can even claim credit for the idea and get it on the websites of all the politicians you work for.

Here's a very recent poll on healthcare. The methodolgy is straightforward. Support for public health insurance too strong to reasonably worry about who paid for the poll.

SurveyUSA poll

Could we please get someone more responsive and liberal than Wyden? I think single payer or at least the public option will be more than successful if only we can get our foot in the door with some lively and fearless progressives. Merkley is doing great in my book.

<h2>BTW---isn't this a site for progressives? Why are there tea baggers or semi-tea baggers on here trying to bait us?</h2>