All Life Is Problem Solving

Chris Matthews asks: “What happened to the Obama message machine.” And Dee Dee Myers and Tony Blankley dutiful provide various off the mark answers about fear and insecurity. But, also, it’s clear to all three that Obama’s message on health care doesn’t have the same clarity as his message during the campaign, and they attribute […]

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At Huffington Post a few days ago, Michael Brenner, lamenting the current display of plutocracy in Congress, had this to say: ”We vaunt American democracy as a stellar model for the world. The bizarre spectacle now on display in Washington as the White House and the Congress tussle over health care “reform” is hardly an […]

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This post is a comment on an exchange with Jason Rosenbaum appearing as replies to ralphbon’s blog post entitled “Seniors Already Have A Public Option. Does It Keep Private Insurers Honest?” Here is the exchange: LetsGetItDone: “ralphbon, Thanks for a very good analysis. Jason, in view of Paul Krugman’s recent analysis of the health insurance […]

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This will be a pretty short one. First, health care reform proposals that offer a “public option” alternative do not provide “socialized medicine.” That is, all medical care in such proposed systems would be provided by private sector Doctors, hospitals, and other other health care institutions. Government in such a plan doesn’t do any medicine. […]

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This one is an Open Letter to my Congressman, James Moran (D-VA). Dear Jim, I feel entitled to address you by your first name because you’ve been my Representative since 1991 and I’ve voted for you in every election since then. I think the issue of health care reform is where most Americans live. Those […]

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Well, maybe not “over” as in “there will be no legislation passed in this session that contains the phrase “public option.” Perhaps there will still be legislation that has a provision with that label. But it will bear no resemblance to Jacob Hacker’s original design for a public option plan, and it won’t provide a […]

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Last night, it occurred to me that the public option idea is a disingenuous approach to health care reform. Here’s the argument. Talking to other progressives, I’ve noticed that they all freely say that single payer will work better than a public option, and that it is the best alternative they know. And then they […]

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When President Obama posed the above question during his reply to the first question in his press conference tonight, I listened carefully during the rest of the press conference for his answer. I didn’t hear it. Or if I did, it didn’t come through clearly enough for me to understand it. I did hear something […]

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The Health Insurance companies and other opponents of government-funded health care have been trying to overcome the statistical evidence of the superiority of public systems by spreading “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt” using horror stories and, of course, outright lies about the failures of health care in other nations having such systems. Those of us who […]

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WaPo op eds are getting increasingly irritating with the passage of time. Yesterday, this formerly great American newspaper in free fall ran an article by Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie called “What’s Next Mr. President – Cardigans?”  Welch and Gillespie think that Obama’s less than stellar results thus far suggest that he may be reviewing […]

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