Political Bloviation

Hereś the annual cost of the various components of government paid health care, with the latest figures I can find:
The elderly:   $599 billion (Medicare)
The poor:      $333 billion (Medicaid)
The workers: $250 billion (Tax subsidy for employer provided benefits)
Veterans:       $39 billion (The VA)
Military:         $50 billion (combined TRICARE and direct costs)
That´s not counting some smaller bits and [...]

There’s a lot of debate about the chances of success. I don’t love the either the Senate or House bills. I personally would have enthusiastically supported something far simpler: Medicare for all with reforms to help control costs.
This would form a floor for benefits, with an opt out for those who have other coverage. A [...]

Ezra Klein – Reid to McConnell: Reconcile this.
Read it yourself, Reid puts the GOP on notice that they will in fact use reconciliation to complete health care reform. Let the screaming from the right begin, now!
I suppose this means that Harry Reid does in fact have balls.

The New Yorker points out that despite bitching and moaning to the contrary the Senate Health Care bill is bipartisan:
…the Democrats’ bill more closely resembles Richard Nixon’s health-care proposal—the one that Ted Kennedy went to his grave regretting he hadn’t embraced—than it does Bill Clinton’s, to say nothing of Harry Truman’s. Nor are all its [...]

As a long time supporter of systemic health reform I find this heartening:
Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.
Reid said that congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper [...]

I find it extremely unlikely that the Democrats in Congress would rediscover the contents of their metaphorical nutsacks and actually do something.
Sen. Michael Bennet’s effort to revive the public option in the reconciliation process is gaining steam, with almost 20 senators signing on to the idea. Among them are Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, who [...]

Jon Stewart skewers the GOP line that the invitation to discuss HCR with the President is a trap. It’s only a trap if the discussion reveals you have nothing to say. There’s a 2nd bit included by John Oliver where he highlights the contradiction between the GOP meeting in Hawaii and the working 40 year [...]

Krugman puts a stake in the ground on HCR:
Op-Ed Columnist – Do the Right Thing – NYTimes.com.
A message to House Democrats: This is your moment of truth. You can do the right thing and pass the Senate health care bill. Or you can look for an easy way out, make excuses and fail the test [...]

Kevin Drum takes on the notion that there are Republican votes to be had for a more conservative approach to HCR:
This fantasy that there are Republican votes for a more moderate bill really needs to end. There are no Republican votes for healthcare reform, no matter how moderate or conservative it is. They’re opposed to [...]

Op-Ed Columnist – Learning From Europe – NYTimes.com.
Krugman tries to talk sense to reflexive Euro-bashers.  Adopting a more humane attitude by taking steps to ensure everyone in the richest nation on earth has access to health care isn’t going to turn us into some kind of socialist dystopian nightmare. And the idea that Europe is [...]

Here’s a recap of how Republican ramrodded the medicare Part D expansion six years ago:
Flashback: ‘The Night The Clocks & Scoreboard Stood Still’ | Fired Up! Missouri. (h/t Ezra Klein)
Note that it was, and still is, completely unfunded and added 100% to the deficit.  Furthermore its ten year costs are about a $1 trillion vs [...]

After a long day of acid, partisan debate, Senate Democrats held ranks early Monday in a dead-of-night procedural vote that proved they had locked in the decisive margin needed to pass a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system.
via Health Bill Passes Key Test in the Senate With 60 Votes – NYTimes.com.
Something is better [...]

Healthcare’s Home Stretch | Mother Jones.
The gist from Kevin Drum  is that something is better than nothing and defeat would set things back years if not decades.  I add that with each attempt, from Truman to Johnson, Nixon and Clinton the goal was a little less ambitious. Where would that leave it if Obama fails? [...]

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: The Public Option Fight May Not Have Been Winnable.
Nate believe the blue dog type conservative democrats staked out their ground during the summer and stuck to it. The votes were never really there to get a public option. Leiberman gave it a swift kick in the nuts on the way out [...]

Facts are stubborn things:
Serious students of health care have known for a long time that the magic of the marketplace doesn’t work in health care; the United States has the most privatized health-care system in the advanced world, and also the least efficient. The pale reflection of this reality in the current discussion is that [...]

Most support public option for health insurance, poll finds – washingtonpost.com.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and wins clear majority support from the public.
A clear majority of 57% supports a public option, despite a massive disinformation [...]

Rep. Alan Grayson-D(FL) of “the GOP’s plan is not to get sick and if you do die quickly” fame was on “Real Time with Bill Maher” tonight. His new take on the GOP’s health reform proposal is to allow Americans to bring a gun to doctor’s office. Where do I sign up?
This guy, I like!

I’m re-posting this bit from Andrew Sullivan and David Frum  because it is the single best piece I’ve seen on how to push back against conservative counter arguments against health reform.  At this point health reform is the conservative position.
I find myself again in agreement with David Frum. It was one thing to oppose greater [...]

As Gleckman says it’s as much an ethical choice as an economic one. It says a lot about us as a country and what are values are. So, what do you think Jesus would do?
It is interesting, and perhaps worth noting, that while political opposition seems to be hardening against the $1 trillion, ten-year cost [...]

Nate Silver had a post about the poor (and perhaps intentionally bad) wording of survey questions about the public option. He find two that meet his criteria for properly worded unambiguous questions. The first is from Quinnipiac:
There is still strong support for critical elements of the Obama/Democratic plan:

62 – 32 percent in favor of [...]