Via Kevin Drum, I have learned that current Senate version of the health reform bill would provide for insurance payments for Christian Science prayer treatments–and probably other “spiritual” treatments as well.

Reporting from Washington – Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments — which substitute for or supplement medical treatments — on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual healthcare.”

Ugh. You know, it’s bad enough that insurance companies are already wasting money paying for quack treatments like chiropractic “adjustments” and acupuncture, but this isn’t just the camel’s nose under the tent–it’s the camel in the tent, spitting and defecating over everything.

If we’re going to be serious about controlling health care costs, we have to stop covering quack treatments just because they might make people “feel better.” Chiropractors, acupuncturists, homeopathists, faith healers, reflexologists and the rest of that pseudoscientific lot are committing fraud: they claim they can heal, but they cannot.

It’s bad enough that we allow them to practice at all. It’s terrible that some insurance companies are idiotic enough to pay for such treatments. It is a derogation of the governments’ duty to its citizens that some states license these trades. But evolving a national health care system that preserves this quackery in law and ensures they get taxpayer dollars is absolutely criminal.

One of the few roles of government that I think folks from every political stripe can agree on is that the government should protect citizens from fraud. It’s not supposed to help people perpetrate fraud.

(cross posted to Heretical Ideas)

Bill McInturff, managing partner of my wife’s firm, had his keynote speech to AHIP interrupted this morning by singing protesters. Sam Stein reports for HuffPo:

Republican pollster Bill McInturff was the keynote speaker on the final day of the America’s Health Insurance Plans’s state issues conference on Friday morning. But his speech on how the health care reform debate was playing among the public was interrupted before it even began. A group of protesters began aggressively cheering McInturff for the work he has done for AHIP (he’s a hired pollster for the private insurance lobby and, most infamously, was the force behind the ‘Harry and Louise’ ads in 1994)

McInturff, initially thinking that the cheering was legitimate, thanked the “AHIP officials” in the back of the room for giving him mental encouragement for his speech. He was not being paid for his appearance, he noted.

And then, the protesters — dressed in business attire to fit into the crowd — began singing. A relatively lengthy and harmonious rendition of “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie ensued, only with the chorus focused on government-run insurance. “The option, the option, we must have, the option… ” went the rendition, in reference to the public plan.

The whole episode lasted a few minutes before the troupe (around 5 or 6 protesters) was escorted out by security.

McInturff, who remarked earlier that he didn’t have a joke to lead off with, pointed to the exiting protesters and said “there’s my joke.” But while his speech had been interrupted, the pollster actually admitted to being mildly impressed. “If you are going to have protesters at least you can hire people who sing,” he said. “That was very good singing.”

Your mileage may vary on that score. Stein has the lyrics of the song for the curious.

As protests go, this was mild enough. Although I share the reaction of whoever it is that can be heard asking, “Who let this people in here?”  I’m seldom amused when Code Pink types or others show up at invitation-only events and interrupt the proceedings.

On his new policy blog at True/Slant, E.D. Kain provides a good defense of the Wyden-Bennett Act.

In Congress, however, we get bad compromises, not good ones, which is why we have the Baucus bill, which is neither as cost-effective, as close to universal coverage, or as fundamentally game-changing as Wyden-Bennett. Indeed, there is little to be enthusiastic about in the Baucus plan, which jealously protects the anti-competitive status-quo from any real changes, and thus – despite any analysis the CBO might put forth – does very little to challenge the fundamental problems which have led to such staggering health care cost increases in the United States.

There was, however, still a chance that the Baucus bill could be amended to bring more competition and cost-savings on board, and once again it’s the incorrigible Senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden, who introduced the Free Choice Act in the Senate Finance Committee. Basically Wyden’s proposal would open up the new health care exchanges to everybody no matter their employer’s coverage and no matter the size of their business.

Read the whole thing. Frankly, I’m baffled that the Republican Party hasn’t picked up Wyden-Bennett. It’s a much better reform proposal than the awful Baucus bill–which, awful as it is, still manages to be better than the status quo–and it’s also a more-market oriented reform. It’s not my ideal, but it’s a vast improvement. This would be a golden opportunity for the GOP to both steal the Democrats’ thunder and improve our hideous health care system. It’s win-win.

Instead, the Republican Party seems to be focused on simply opposing Obama, and the only significant “reform” being offered is the constant, anti-responsiblity drumbeat of “tort reform”: i.e. making physicians a special class of Americans who get to be protected from the consequences of their negligence.

Olympia Snowe and other wayward Republicans will be subject to strong persuasion but no punishment from the caucus, Senate Republican leaders tell Politico.

Mitch McConnell and his deputies in the Senate Republican leadership are responding very cautiously to Olympia Snowe's decision to become the first GOP vote for a Democratic health care reform bill. Photo: AP

Mitch McConnell and his deputies in the Senate Republican leadership are responding very cautiously to Olympia Snowe’s decision to become the first GOP vote for a Democratic health care reform bill.

That’s about all they can do.

“My job as whip is not to twist her arm but to bring all the information that we can bring to bear on the issue and hope that people vote the way we would like to see them vote,” said McConnell’s No. 2, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). Kyl said a heavy-handed approach “doesn’t work.”

And indeed, it could backfire — not just with Snowe but with other Republicans who’ve indicated that they could cross over to help Democrats pass some of President Barack Obama’s top domestic policy initiatives.

In an op-ed in The New York Times over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested that he’s open to supporting a Democratic climate change bill. And in an interview published this week in POLITICO, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said he was willing to try to find common ground with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on rewriting the rules for Wall Street.

Republican leaders know that if they crack down hard on Snowe, they risk pushing her and other wavering Republicans into the arms of the Democrats. So, instead, they’ll lobby their own intensely in order to keep the GOP united and force the Democrats to find 60 votes by themselves.

Shelby has assured Republicans that he won’t cross over on his own. He told POLITICO on Wednesday that he would “never support something as the lone Republican.”

But the same can’t be said of Snowe or Graham. Snowe was the only Republican on the Senate Finance Committee to vote for the Democrats’ health care bill Tuesday. And over the summer, Graham was the only Republican on the Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Shelby was twice elected to the Senate as a Democrat, switching parties when the GOP won the majority in 1994.  Still, he and Graham aren’t going anywhere unless pushed very, very hard.  But Northeastern Republicans like Snowe and Susan Collins would likely improve their positions by becoming Democrats, so treading lightly is McConnell’s only sane choice.

Lamar Alexander, who is in charge of the Senate GOP’s message, said that “our conference does not dictate policy to individual senators” and that opinion among Republican senators is “rarely unanimous.”

On Wednesday, Snowe said she’s not worried about being on the receiving end of any backlash within her caucus. And she dismissed reports that supporting a Democratic health care reform bill could cost her a chance at moving up to the top GOP slot on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. “I have no reason to believe that,” she said.

Back when Arlen Specter was a nominal Republican instead of the nominal Democrat he recently became, I opposed having him chair the Judiciary Committee.   That wasn’t as punishment –I ‘d have given him another powerful chairmanship — but rather because confirming judges is one of a small handful of issues where party unity truly matters.   Surely, Science, Transportation, and Commerce shouldn’t be divided along party lines on most issues.

We’re a continental country with extraordinary diversity.  Senators from Maine are not going to see eye-to-eye on most issues with their counterparts in Kentucky.  Insisting otherwise is a surefire recipe for minority status.

Erick Erickson is angry at liberal Republican Olympia Snowe’s announcement yesterday that she’d sign on to the Baucus version of health care reform in exchange for a seat at the negotiating table.

Olympia Snowe has sold out the country. Having been banished to our world after Aslan chased her out of Narnia, Snowe is intent on corrupting this place too.

So we should melt her.

What melts snow? Rock salt.

I’m going to ship this 5 pound bag of rock salt to her office in Maine. It’s only $3.00. You should join me.

It is a visible demonstration of our contempt for her. First she votes for the stimulus. Now this.

When I saw the post this morning, following a link from memeorandum, it struck me as a monumentally silly idea but not interesting enough to bother to write about.  After further consideration, though, I’ve changed my mind.

First, as John Cole points out, Erick is not only urging readers to send rock salt to a United States Senator but to do it via an Amazon affiliate link that nets money for RedState!  (I wonder if this violates the new FCC disclosure rules?)

Second, as Duncan “Atrios” Black observes, “sending large quantities of a white somewhat powdery substance to Senate offices” might be a tad problematic.

Third, he’s having readers send said salt to a suite in Maine rather than to her Capitol Hill office.

Fourth, Steve Benen correctly notes that the scheme makes no sense to begin with:

A right-wing blogger who isn’t a Snowe constituent has sent rock salt to a Senate office — a package that the senator will never see — even if sent to a district office in Maine.* He wants others, most of whom will also not be Snowe constituents, to do the same. None of these packages will ever actually reach Snowe.ss

And then what? The Republican senator will be vaguely aware of the fact that right-wing activists don’t approve of her moderation? I’m pretty sure she knows that already. Is this supposed to influence Snowe’s issue positions? Is she likely to think, “Well, I was going to vote for this bill, but some folks outside Maine sent me rock salt so perhaps I’ll reconsider”?

Indeed, an intrepid commenter points out “Sen. Snowe can probably make a lot of her constituents happy by distributing free bags of rock salt this winter. Thus boosting her re-election prospects.”

Sending her bags of salt is going to befuddle her, perhaps, but it’s not going to change her mind.  The bottom line is that Snowe is a liberal Republican who’s superbly attuned to her constituency.  Maine isn’t a Red state and few of its residents read Red State.

It’s conceivable, even somewhat likely, that Snowe’s voting with the Democrats will further alienate her from her caucus. Perhaps she’ll even be stripped of key committee assignments. In which case she’ll join Arlen Specter in bolting to the Democratic Party.  Which, given the unlikelihood of the Republicans regaining the majority soon, might be in her interests, anyway.

Is it frustrating that Snowe and perhaps Susan Collins will vote with the Democrats and make it easier for Obama to pass a bill that’s anathema to most other Republicans?  You betcha.  But unless we’re going to become a permanent minority party, we’re going to have to be able to win some seats in the Northeast.  That’ll mean accepting something less than lockstep party discipline on issues where there’s serious regional disparities in viewpoint.

James Capretta does a back of the envelope calculation on the Baucus health care reform bill and concludes that it would be like having a 70% marginal tax rate on the low income.

According to CBO, family coverage in 2016 is likely to cost about $14,400 under the so-called “silver option” in the health-care reform plan sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus. In the Baucus plan, a family of four at the poverty line (about $24,000 in 2016) would have pay to about $1,400 toward coverage, with the federal government paying the other $13,000 on their behalf. In addition, the government would also provide $3,500 to reduce the family’s deductible and co-payment costs for health services. Thus, the new entitlement provided by the Baucus bill would be worth a whopping $16,500 for a family at the poverty line.

As incomes rise, however, the Baucus bill cuts the value of the entitlement. A family with an income at twice the poverty line, or $48,000 in 2016, would get $9,072 in federal assistance for coverage — still a substantial sum. But it’s $7,400 less than the family would get if they earned half as much. The Baucus plan thus imposes an implicit marginal tax rate of about 30 percent ($7,400/$24,000) on wages earned by families in this income range.

And that would come on top of the high implicit taxes already built into current law. Low-wage families with children also get the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC boosts incomes for those with the very lowest wages, but it is also phased-out as incomes rise. Past a certain threshold (about $21,400 in 2016), the EITC is reduced by $0.21 for every additional $1 earned. Throw in the individual income tax rate (15 percent) and payroll taxes (7.65 percent), and the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent — not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers.

That is a substantial marginal tax rate, and would serve as a disincentive towards working towards getting higher paying jobs. I also agree it would be a good idea if the CBO were to do a much more thorough analysis of this bill to verify these calculations.

Update: Via Greg Mankiw I see that the CBO has released some analysis on incomes, premiums, and so forth under the Baucus bill, and for the upper incomes there are marginal tax increases, not sure about low income earners. Also, if you are single you will get hit pretty hard even when your income goes from $26,500 to $32,400, the implicit marginal tax rate on that income due to the change in premiums is 24%. Then add on for payroll taxes, income taxes and so forth.

There is also this CBO policy brief that discusses the issue,

New subsidies might be created to cover the costs of private health insurance, and they could be gradually reduced over a specified income range in a variety of ways—with different implications for marginal tax rates and work incentives. Those subsidies could be gradually reduced at a uniform rate, causing implicit marginal tax rates to rise by the same amount for all recipients in the phase-out range. For example, a proposal might provide families whose income was at the federal poverty level (roughly $23,000 for a family of four in 2013, the year in which many proposals would take effect) with fully subsidized health insurance valued at $15,000. That subsidy might be gradually reduced as income increased, and families whose income was above 400 percent of the poverty level ($92,000) might be ineligible for any subsidy. In that case, marginal tax rates would go up by about 22 percentage points for all families whose income was between 100 percent and 400 percent of the poverty level.

A 22% marginal tax rate on households with income between 100% to 400% of the poverty level could reduce incentives for those households to decision on how much to work. If taking on a new job means less leisure time as well as a higher marginal tax rate a person might decide not to take the job even if the pay is higher.

And as Greg Mankiw points out, if people respond to these implicit changes in the marginal tax rates by working less, then it is possible that in the future GDP is lower and that payroll taxes are also lower. Thus exacerbating our already serious problems with Social Security and Medicare.

Paul Krugman continues to demonstrate that brilliance in one field doesn’t necessarily translate into sound insights into others. He’s upset that some Republicans took pleasure in President Obama’s embarrassment in not landing the Olympics for his adopted Chicago and their cynicism in positioning themselves as the defenders of Medicare in order to fight his health care reform proposals. His explanation for both: “the G.O.P. opposes anything that might be good for Mr. Obama.”

But that’s rather silly. The Olympics matter was one of schadenfreude. I know plenty of people who voted for and continue to support Obama who nonetheless question his hubris and the cult of personality that surrounds him. And the Medicare issue is one of tactics, choosing a politically expedient means to an end.

Moreover, Krugman continues this to Friedmanesque extremes.

How did one of our great political parties become so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern?The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern. Anyone surprised by the venomous, over-the-top opposition to Mr. Obama must have forgotten the Clinton years. Remember when Rush Limbaugh suggested that Hillary Clinton was a party to murder? When Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those Medicare cuts? And let’s not even talk about the impeachment saga.

Reagan won landslide victories and was still opposed by Democrats at every turn, often in vitriolic terms. Who can forget the late Teddy Kennedy’s vicious harangue against “Robert Bork’s America”? And goodness knows, George W. Bush wasn’t exactly treated with kid gloves. Our politics have taken a nasty turn this generation — hardly unprecedented in our history but magnified by a changed media climate — and now it’s Obama’s turn to feel the heat.

The only difference now is that the G.O.P. is in a weaker position, having lost control not just of Congress but, to a large extent, of the terms of debate. The public no longer buys conservative ideology the way it used to; the old attacks on Big Government and paeans to the magic of the marketplace have lost their resonance.

Only because the Democrats have long since embraced the same rhetoric, forcing the Republicans to either adopt extreme positions or be “Me Too.” They’ve done some of both.

Yet conservatives retain their belief that they, and only they, should govern.The result has been a cynical, ends-justify-the-means approach. Hastening the day when the rightful governing party returns to power is all that matters, so the G.O.P. will seize any club at hand with which to beat the current administration.It’s an ugly picture. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth anyone trying to find solutions to America’s real problems has to understand.

Again, this has been equally true of Democrats when they cycle out of power. It requires blindness or sheer partisan hackery to think what Obama’s facing now is any more ruthless or impolite than what Bush did during his eight years.

Sam Stein reports that “Democrats are bracing themselves for a new line of conservative attack against a provision in the health care legislation once considered so non-controversial that it was endorsed by several major Republican officials.”  What is it, you might ask, that these dastardly Republicans are opposing out of their racist hatred of Barack Obama?

On Tuesday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) described the health care legislation being considered by the Senate Finance Committee as a “stunning assault on liberty” due to a provision that would require individuals to buy insurance.  Earlier in the week, the individual mandate also came under attack when Tim Phillips, who heads Americans for Prosperity, described it as an assault on individual liberty. “When you have health care, that’s a choice that impacts yourself,” Phillips told MSNBC’s Hardball. “Drivers’ insurance impacts other drivers you may have accidents with.”

The attacks have confounded Democrats in and out of government, who noted quickly that mandating coverage was, until recently, a relative given when it came to health care reform.  “It’s f–ing ludicrous,” said one health care reform activist, who noted that when Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) asked committee members to air their disagreements with an individual mandate during a meeting on May 5, no one chimed in.

Indeed, for months it was presumed that a relatively ironclad deal was in place: in exchange for the government mandating coverage, private insurance companies would agree to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions. The arrangement was all but blessed by prominent figures from within the GOP ranks. In mid-August, the ranking member of the finance committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), announced that the way to get universal coverage is “through an individual mandate.” “That’s individual responsibility,” the senator told Nightly Business Report. “And even Republicans believe in individual responsibility.”

So, Chuck Grassley and at least six other Republicans currently in the Senate support — or at least are willing to sign off on –  a law forcing Americans to buy health insurance.  But that hardly renders it “non-controversial.”

Indeed, this provision was incredibly controversial during last year’s Democratic presidential primaries.   Indeed, only John Edwards and Hillary Clinton supported mandates.  Among those opposing?  Barack Obama and Joe Biden who, as some will recall, went on to win the presidential and vice-presidential nominations, respectively, of the Democratic Party and go on to win election to those offices.

John Judis for The New Republic in June 2007:

Obama’s health care plan, which he announced last week, has been widely criticized by liberals for not making health insurance mandatory. Challenged by Edwards, Obama explained why a mandate is not a cure-all. “If you look at auto insurance, in California there’s mandatory auto insurance,” Obama explained. “Twenty-five percent of the folks don’t have it. The reason is because they can’t afford it. So John and I, we’re not that different in this sense; that I’m committed to starting the process. Everybody who wants it can buy it and it’s affordable. If we have some gaps remaining, we will work on that. You take it from the opposite direction, but you’re still going to have some folks who aren’t insured under your plan, John, because some of them will simply not be able to afford to buy the coverage they’re offered.”

Ron Chusid summarizes the intra-liberal debate on the subject in Liberal Values, February 2008

Paul Krugman continues his vendetta against Barack Obama’s health care plan due to its lack of mandates. The consequence of lacking mandates is unclear as nobody knows for sure how many people would still go without insurance if it was affordable but voluntary, and nobody really knows for sure how many people would remain uninsured despite mandates. It does seem reasonable to assume that achieving near one hundred percent compliance with a mandate would require yet another new bureaucracy and the expenditure of funds which might better be used for actual health care.

There are a variety of views as to whose plan would really insure more people. Robert Reich has argued that more people would wind up being covered under Obama’s plan than Clinton’s.

[...]

Using mandates to achieve universal coverage seems like quite a cop out to me. Regardless of whether the plan is good or the plan stinks, universal coverage is achieved because the government forces you to join up. In contrast Obama takes on the challenge of offering a plan so good that virtually everyone will want to participate to receive health coverage. There is also a clear philosophical difference here in that Obama isn’t obsessed with having every single person sign up. In contrast, a self-proclaimed government junkie like Hillary Clinton just can not live with the fact that somewhere, someone decides they do not want her help. Clinton will help them whether they want her to or not.

I know Clinton supporters will scream that I’m using right wing frames here, but again I must point out that freedom and choice should be considered virtues, not right wing frames. Liberty is what liberalism is ultimately all about, which explains whey Clinton prefers to label herself a progressive and not a liberal.

Some on the far left claim that Democrats lose when these alleged right wing frames about freedom are employed. They got it all wrong. Democrats lose when they concede traditional liberal values such as liberty to the right. If an election is framed so that one side is allowed to be defined as the party of freedom, that party will win virtually every time. Democrats have lost so many elections not because of using right wing frames, but because of conceding values such as freedom to conservatives, even though conservatives talk about freedom without really supporting it.

Ryan Lizza explains why Biden agreed to be Obama’s running mate for The New Yorker in October 2008:

Biden was impressed that Obama’s proposals seemed to be written with an eye toward passage in Congress. (For instance, the lack of a mandate in Obama’s health-care proposal could make the idea more palatable to Republicans.) During the primaries, Biden often played the role of policy grownup, the candidate who liked to chide the unrealistic plans of his rivals.

On July 17th, PoliFact’s Truth-o-Meter awards Obama a full-on flip flop on the issue:

Walk back with us through the mists of time to early 2008, and you might remember then-candidate Barack Obama defending the rights of hard-working people so they would not be forced to buy health insurance.

Obama’s position was different from his two nearest rivals, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, who included mandates for individuals to buy health insurance in their plans for reform. It was an issue that got downright contentious on the campaign trail.

At a debate in South Carolina, Edwards said Obama’s plan really wasn’t universal health care, since it didn’t have a mandate to ensure everyone was covered.

Obama replied that his plan was universal (a claim we rated Barely True ) and explained why he was against a mandate: “A mandate means that in some fashion, everybody will be forced to buy health insurance. … But I believe the problem is not that folks are trying to avoid getting health care. The problem is they can’t afford it. And that’s why my plan emphasizes lowering costs.”

Obama said at the time it was possible some people would refuse to buy health care under his plan.

“It’s true that some people could game the system by just waiting till they get sick and then they show up,” Obama said. “But keep in mind that my plan also says children will be able to stay on their parents’ plan up until the age of 25. And so I don’t believe that there are a whole bunch of folks out there that will not get coverage. And John, both you and Hillary have a hardship exemption where, if people can’t afford to buy health care, you exempt them so that you sort of don’t count them.”

Now, I don’t much care about the flip-flop.  The debate has moved over the past two years, as has the political make-up of the Congress.  Obama may well have been legitimately persuaded that his best chance of getting what he wants it to accede to a mandate.

But let’s not rewrite history, either.  Forcing Americans to buy health insurance regardless of whether they want it or can afford it is extremely controversial, with not only Republicans but most of the Democratic contenders for the presidency in 2008 opposing it.

UPDATE: Headline of the Day honors go to Bill Quick for “Mandating Change Without Hope.”

Yesterday, somewhere between “tens of thousands” and “two million” people flooded the nation’s capital to protest somethingoranother.

Thousands Rally in Capital to Protest Big Government (Jeff Zeleny, NYT)

Amanda Lucidon for The New York Times

A sea of protesters filled the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall on Saturday in the largest rally against President Obama since he took office, a culmination of a summer-long season of protests that began with opposition to a health care overhaul and grew into a broader dissatisfaction with government.

On a cloudy and cool day, the demonstrators came from all corners of the country, waving American flags and handwritten signs explaining the root of their frustrations. Their anger stretched well beyond the health care legislation moving through Congress, with shouts of support for gun rights, lower taxes and a smaller government.

But as they sang verse after verse of patriotic hymns like “God Bless America,” sharp words of profane and political criticism were aimed at Mr. Obama and Congress.

Dick Armey, a former House Republican leader whose group Freedomworks helped organize the protest, stood before the crowd and led the rallying cries in nearly the same spot where Mr. Obama took his oath of office eight months ago. “He pledged a commitment of fidelity to the United States Constitution,” Mr. Armey said, suggesting that Mr. Obama was in violation of what the founding fathers intended the size and scope of the government to be.

“Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar!” the crowd shouted back, echoing the accusation that Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, hurled at the president three days earlier during his address to Congress.

The demonstrators numbered well into the tens of thousands, though the police declined to estimate the size of the crowd. Many came on their own and were not part of an organization or group. But the magnitude of the rally took the authorities by surprise, with throngs of people streaming from the White House to Capitol Hill for more than three hours.

Lashing Out at the Capitol – Tens of Thousands Protest Obama Initiatives and Government Spending (Emma Brown, James Hohmann and Perry Bacon Jr. – WaPo)

Tens of thousands of conservative protesters, many complaining that the nation is racing toward socialism, massed outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, angrily denouncing President Obama’s health-care plan and other initiatives as threats to the Constitution.

The crowd — loud, animated and sprawling — gathered at the West Front of the Capitol after a march along Pennsylvania Avenue NW from Freedom Plaza. Invocations of God and former president Ronald Reagan by an array of speakers drew loud cheers that echoed across the Mall. On a windy, overcast afternoon, hundreds of yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags flapped in the breeze.

“Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored,” declared Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, urging protesters to call their representatives. The demonstrators roared their approval. “We own the dome!” they chanted, pointing at the Capitol.

The demonstrators are part of a loose-knit movement that is galvanizing anti-Obama sentiment across the country, stoking a populist dimension to the Republican Party, which has struggled to find its voice since the 2008 elections.

Tea Party Protesters March on Washington – Thousands March to U.S. Capitol to Protest Government Spending, Health Care; Many Chanted ‘You Lie’ (Russell Goldman, ABC)

Thousands of conservative protesters from across the country converged on the Capitol Saturday morning to demonstrate against President Obama’s proposals for health care reform and voicing opposition to big government, what they say is over-the-top spending.

Carrying signs depicting President Obama as Adolf Hitler and the Joker, and chanting slogans such as “‘No big government” and “Obamacare makes me sick,” approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people flooded Pennsylvania Ave, according to the Washington DC Fire Department.

Organized by FreedomWorks, a conservative activist group led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, many of the protestors were affiliated with the Tea Party movement, grassroots demonstrations that began across the country last spring to protest Democratic tax policies, and government bailouts of the banking and auto industries.

The big blogospheric debate seems to be over crowd size. FreedomWorks apparently quoted ABC News as reporting the crowd size at “1 million to 1.5 million” and others claimed as much as 2 million. ABC issued a report denying that it ever said anything of the sort: “At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as “tens of thousands.” The fact of the matter is that nobody ever has a very good idea how many people attended these things and, since the fiasco of the “Million Man March,” the Capitol Police have wisely stopped providing estimates.

Suffice it to say: A whole lot of people showed up. Michelle Malkin has crowd photos and there’s no refuting that the turnout was simply massive.

What’s more interesting to me is not how many but Why? Matt Yglesias does what pretty much everybody does when there’s a big protest from the other side: Point to the yahoos.

I wouldn’t want to tell you that the majority of the people I saw at this morning’s tea party were such hard-core patriots that they felt the need to walk around waving flags of treason and slavery:

Still it did strike me as noteworthy that your basic tea party crowd isn’t the sort of crowd in which a Confederate flag is unwelcome. I feel like if you’d tried to bring this to a health care rally, folks would have gotten upset. But the tea parties, like a lot of big time conservative events, are a very racism friendly environment. This guy, for example, clearly isn’t so much the type to march with a racist shirt on as he is the kind of guy who’d march with a shirt ridiculing the idea of anti-racism:

As was the case with the bulk of the protesters, there was very little sense that anyone had any actual specific complaint with Obama’s health care proposals. That one woman loves the confederacy. This guy thinks guns are great and diversity is stupid. Many protesters feel that abortion is murder and/or that Barack Obama is in league with terrorists. But nobody had a sign urging the president to adopt more stringent cost control measures, or slamming the concept of regulations to require insurers to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Now, as a Southerner, I tend to have a more benign view of people waving Confederate flags or wearing pro-gun T-shirts. Some of them are racist yahoos, to be sure, but most of them are just decent folks taking pride in a way of life they feel is under assault.

Regardless, however, Matt’s right about the last part:  There’s not one single thing motivating all these people.  They likely have vastly different policy preferences even on the central issue that supposedly ties them together: opposition to Big Government, whose era is not in fact over.  I would simply add that this is true of all mass protest movements.

We on the Right have always made fun of these protestors — which have, until now, been almost exclusively the province of the Left — because, frankly, there are always a lot of yahoos in the crowd.   There are always plenty of signs and t-shirts and epithets shouted that would make the organizers cringe because they take away from the intended message and make the protest seem less serious.  (Matt Welch, who is very sympathetic to the Tea Party cause, points to a man carrying a sign saying “Stop spending our tacos. I love tacos.”  I have no idea what inspired that but it’s epic.)

On the Left, there seem to be a solid cohort who will show up to protest anything; they’re damned near professional protesters.    With the Tea Party protests, we may finally be seeing their analog on the Right.

It’s unfair, regardless of the loose cause that motivates them to show up, to criticize the “movement” because individual protesters seem unable to articulate why they’re there.  Most people really can’t do that.  And people who show up to protest are usually motivated by emotion rather than cold logic.  They’re simply angry at the direction they think they’re country’s going and want to vent their frustrations and show that they’re not alone.  Welch nails it:

Political rallies are no place to seek the subtle truth, nor feel particularly glowing about your countrymen, and today was no different in that regard for me. But the meta-fact about a huge anti-Obamanomics protest eight months into his term is certainly significant, and very little of what I saw made me fear that Alex Pareene will be blown to smithereens by a suicide hijacker from Arkansas.

Malkin’s got my favorite photo:

Not only is the sign defiantly funny — and decidedly not Astroturfed — but it’s a great crowd shot of a bunch of regular Americans getting together to express their displeasure with their government in a civilized manner.  Protest rallies aren’t, so to speak, my cup of tea.  But there are worse outlet valves for the inevitable frustrations of a huge and incredibly diverse country.

The award goes to Chris Matthews for this:

You know there’s going to be a lot of talk about the tragic blessings of the Kennedy family, and the curse. And it’s all nonsense. These people were courageous risk takers. Kathleen Kennedy, the girl, the oldest daughter, she was killed with her lover traveling on a plane ride she never should have taken through terrible weather in Europe. Joe Kennedy, Jr. took a mission that nobody should have taken in a plane loaded with dynamite to go blow up the V-1 rocket sites. Jack Kennedy was killed in an open car in Dallas in the midst of the most hated–it’s like the mood we’re in right now.

Is the passing of a 77-year-old recovering alcoholic from brain cancer really causing a mood similar to the murder of a sitting president of the United States at 46?  Or is he saying that the people who oppose the Democratic leadership’s agenda on health care reform are like Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mark Finkelstein notes that Oswald wasn’t even a conservative: “Need Matthews be reminded that JFK was killed not by a hate-filled right-winger, but by a Communist who had spent time in the Soviet Union?”

Rob Port, from whom I discovered this clip via Twitter, observes “nobody in the mainstream conservative movement wants Obama assassinated. We just want him booted from office.”

Matthews is a likeable enough guy but he manages to say something phenomenally stupid every couple of months and keep his perch as a serious commentator on MSNBC.  That’s job security right there.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy died last night, aged 77, succumbing to brain cancer.

Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies (John Broder, NYT)

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77.

The death of Mr. Kennedy, who had been battling brain cancer, was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family, which was already mourning the death of the senator’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver two weeks earlier.

“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port,” the statement said. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever.”

“An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” President Obama said in a statement. “Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time.”

Mr. Kennedy had been in precarious health since he suffered a seizure in May 2008. His doctors determined the cause had been a malignant glioma, a brain tumor that often carries a grim prognosis.

As he underwent cancer treatment, Mr. Kennedy was little seen in Washington, appearing most recently at the White House in April as Mr. Obama signed a national service bill that bears the Kennedy name. Last week Mr. Kennedy urged Massachusetts lawmakers to change state law and let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a temporary replacement upon his death, to assure that the state’s representation in Congress would not be interrupted by a special election.

While Mr. Kennedy had been physically absent from the capital in recent months, his presence had been deeply felt as Congress weighed the most sweeping revisions to America’s health care system in decades, an effort Mr. Kennedy called “the cause of my life.”

Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77 After Cancer Battle (Joe Holley, WaPo)

Edward M. Kennedy, one of the most powerful and influential senators in American history and one of three brothers whose political triumphs and personal tragedies captivated the nation for decades, died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77. He had been battling brain cancer.

His family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the statement said. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all.”

President Obama released a statement Wednesday morning, pointing out that “virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. . . . Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time. . . . Our hearts and prayers go out to” the Kennedy family.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was the last male survivor of a privileged and charismatic family that in the 1960s dominated American politics and attracted worldwide attention. His sister, Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, died two weeks ago, also in Hyannis Port. One sibling, former U.S. ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, is still alive.

As heir through tragedy to his accomplished older brothers — President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), both of whom were assassinated — Edward Kennedy became the patriarch of his clan and a towering figure in the U.S. Senate to a degree neither of his siblings had been.

Kennedy served in the Senate through five of the most dramatic decades of the nation’s history. He became a lawmaker whose legislative accomplishments, political authority and gift for friendship across the political spectrum invited favorable comparisons to Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and a handful of other leviathans of the country’s most elite political body. But he was also beset by personal frailties and family misfortunes that were the stuff of tabloid headlines.

For years, many Democrats considered Kennedy’s own presidency a virtual inevitability. In 1968, a “Draft Ted” campaign emerged only a few months after Robert Kennedy’s death, but he demurred, realizing he was not prepared to be president.

Political observers considered him the candidate to beat in 1972, but that possibility came to an end on a night in July 1969, when the senator drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., and a young female passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. The tragedy had a corrosive effect on Kennedy’s image, eroding his national standing. He made a dismal showing when he challenged President Jimmy Carter for reelection in 1980. But the moment of his exit from the presidential stage marked an oratorical highlight when, speaking at the Democratic National Convention, he invoked his brothers and promised: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on. The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

Kennedy dead at 77 (Martin Nolan, Boston Globe)

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who carried aloft the torch of a Massachusetts dynasty and a liberal ideology to the citadel of Senate power, but whose personal and political failings may have prevented him from realizing the ultimate prize of the presidency, died at his home in Hyannis Port last night after a battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” his family said in a statement. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness, and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.’’

Overcoming a history of family tragedy, including the assassinations of a brother who was president and another who sought the presidency, Senator Kennedy seized the role of being a “Senate man.’’ He became a Democratic titan of Washington who fought for the less fortunate, who crafted unlikely deals with conservative Republicans, and who ceaselessly sought support for universal health coverage.

“Teddy,’’ as he was known to intimates, constituents, and even his fiercest enemies, was an unwavering symbol to the left and the right – the former for his unapologetic embrace of liberalism, and latter for his value as a political target. But with his fiery rhetoric, his distinctive Massachusetts accent, and his role as representative of one of the nation’s best-known political families, he was widely recognized as an American original. In the end, some of those who might have been his harshest political enemies, including former President George W. Bush, found ways to collaborate with the man who was called the “last lion’’ of the Senate.

Senator Kennedy’s White House aspirations may have been doomed by his actions on the night he drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 and failed to promptly report the accident in which Mary Jo Kopechne, who had worked for his brother Robert, died. When Kennedy nonetheless later sought to wrest the presidential nomination from an incumbent Democrat, Jimmy Carter, he failed. But that failure prompted him to reevaluate his place in history, and he dedicated himself to fulfilling his political agenda by other means, famously saying, “the dream shall never die.’’

Ted Kennedy Dies of Brain Cancer at Age 77 – ‘Liberal Lion’ of the Senate Led Storied Political Family After Deaths of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (ABC)

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77.

The man known as the “liberal lion of the Senate” had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the Kennedy family said in a statement. “He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it.”

Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family’s political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.

Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor — by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy dies at 77 – Liberal lion loses yearlong battle with brain cancer at Massachusetts home (NBC News/wire)

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate and haunted bearer of the Camelot torch after two of his brothers fell to assassins’ bullets, has died at his home in Hyannis Port after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a steadfast champion of the working class and the poor, a powerful voice on health care, civil rights, and war and peace. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving son of America’s most glamorous political family, the eulogist of a clan shattered again and again by tragedy.

[...]

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, when his brother John was president, and served longer than all but two senators in history. Over the decades, he put his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to clear the Congress.

His own hopes of reaching the White House were damaged — perhaps doomed — in 1969 by the scandal that came to be known as Chappaquiddick, an auto accident that left a young woman dead.

Kennedy — known to family, friends and foes simply as Ted — ended his quest for the presidency in 1980 with a stirring valedictory that echoed across the decades: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

[...]

Nancy Reagan, the widow of President Ronald Reagan, was one of the first to speak out from the Republican Party.

“Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family,” she said in a statement.

“But Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research, and I considered him an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him,” she said.

Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose wife, Maria Shriver, was Kennedy’s niece, praised “the rock of our family: a loving husband, father, brother and uncle.”

That the Chappaquiddick scandal didn’t make the first several paragraphs — or even first page — of several of these obits is quite remarkable. It would be like writing an obit for Richard Nixon that didn’t mention Watergate or one for Michael Jackson that glossed over repeated allegations of pedophilia.

That said, Kennedy was obviously much more than his actions on the worst night of his life. While he could be incredibly partisan, even vitriolically so on some issues, he was almost universally acknowledged even by opponents as an honorable negotiating partner and an outstanding legislator.

See my followup, “Mary Jo Kopechne.”

In the last several posts on health care it is often pointed out that health insurance companies engage in dubious practices. For example, they’ll deny coverage for the most trivial of reasons. Many posting comments focus on this issue as well as others such as quality of care, the moral nature of providing health care, and so forth. While these are indeed problems with out health care functions here in this country my contention is that these are all side issues. The main issue is money.

For example, suppose we end the practice of denying people health care for pre-existing conditions. What would likely happen? The costs of health care and health insurance would probably rise. People with pre-existing conditions would have easier access to health care, and since they have pre-existing conditions health insurance premiums would have to rise and they’d also likely consume more resources driving up the costs of health care in general.

How about ending the practice of recission, what is the likely impact on health care costs? They would likely go up. People who would have otherwise had difficulty obtaining certain types of care would now have a much easier time. Hence they’d consume more resources driving up prices.

Then there is universal coverage. While it is unlikely that we’d obtain 100% coverage, we could probably get pretty close. But what would happen to costs? Again, people who don’t have easy access will have easy access and will in all likelihood consume more health care resources than they otherwise would. The most reasonable prediction is that costs would rise.

However, making all these changes is also desirable. Making sure that people with pre-existing conditions can obtain medical care that is not financially ruinous is a good thing. So is preventing the cancellation of an existing insurance contract for a ridiculous failure to report a minor health issue. But ending such practices alone will not improve the health care picture. In fact, it could very well make the picture bleaker by increasing the rate of increase in health care costs.

The big issue with health care is the costs. Both the magnitude and even more importantly the growth rate of health care costs are the primary reason for health care reform. I’ve described the health care issue as driving towards a cliff. Solving just these other issues is like saying you’ve adjusted the mirror, turned on the air conditioning, and tuned in a really great radio station. Sure they can be nice and helpful, but once you go sailing over the cliff they wont mean shit. Really.

Now ideally we’d like to control costs and maintain the current level of care or if possible improve it.[1] Addressing the costs issue should encompass both the demand side as well as the supply side of the issue.[2] Also, we can’t just look at other countries and implement that system and expect the same results. As Dave Schuler noted, Switzerland and the Swiss have a very different outlook on things than we do in the U.S. Part of the success there might hinge on that different outlook. Also, there is the size of the population. For example, Singapore has a pretty good health care system. It is also a tiny country with a miniscule population in comparison to the U.S. It is unreasonable to expect linear scaling if we were to move to the Singaporean model of health care…it might work, but the differences in size is pretty large making it a dubious proposition. Still, we should look at these systems that are doing better than the U.S. on the costs side of the issue. Maybe there are things that we can learn and implement here.

If the issue of costs and the rate of growth is not addressed, then none of the other stuff matters. We will eventually go right over the cliff and then all bets are off as to what will happen.
_____
[1]Improving care while contorlling costs will be very difficult, as the saying goes, “Faster, better, and cheaper–pick two.”
[2]Please do not read “supply side” to mean the macro economic policies that were popularized under Ronald Reagan. I’m talking about dealing with supply issues, the number of doctors, nurses, hospitals, drugs, etc.

Gene Lyons has written a column headlined “You won’t win the healthcare debate by calling people stupid racists.”

The piece isn’t worth reading, I’m afraid, after the headline — which Lyons probably didn’t write. But the title is right on. It’s a truism of public debate that you will never persuade those who disagree with you by dismissing them as stupid or venal. Yet that’s become the standard first move on both sides of the aisle.

It’s likely true that, as Barney Frank’s ethnic heritage compelled him to point out, that arguing with some of the specific people who show up to rant and scream at the town hall debates is like arguing with a dining room table.  Some people are simply beyond reasoning with.

But — and this is the point Lyons is getting at — they represent the honest fears of a lot of decent folk who are amenable to persuasion.  And President Obama himself is taking the right tack in treating them as such.  The Democratic leadership in Congress and many liberal commentators, though, are lumping them in with the Birthers and LaRouchites.

Taking a page out of Soloman’s playbook, Congressional Democrats have a brand new plan for passing health care reform.

The White House and Senate Democratic leaders, seeing little chance of bipartisan support for their health-care overhaul, are considering a strategy shift that would break the legislation into two parts and pass the most expensive provisions solely with Democratic votes.

The idea is the latest effort by Democrats to escape the morass caused by delays in Congress, as well as voter discontent crystallized in angry town-hall meetings. Polls suggest the overhaul plans are losing public support, giving Republicans less incentive to go along.

Democrats hope a split-the-bill plan would speed up a vote and help President Barack Obama meet his goal of getting a final measure by year’s end.

Senators on the Finance Committee are pushing ahead with talks on a bipartisan bill. Democratic leaders say they hope those talks succeed but increasingly are preparing for the possibility that they do not.

Now . . . waitaminute.   If the Democrats have the votes to pass the more controversial parts of the bill on their own, why would they take the heat for doing it and then give the Republicans a free pass by allowing them to vote for a pain-free bipartisan bill?

Most legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, but certain budget-related measures can pass with 51 votes through a parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation.

In recent days, Democratic leaders have concluded they can pack more of their health overhaul plans under this procedure, congressional aides said. They might even be able to include a public insurance plan to compete with private insurers, a key demand of the party’s liberal wing, but that remains uncertain.

Okay, but — again — if they can get these things through via a workaround, why not just keep the bill intact?

President Obama, seeing that he is taking a beating in the polls, and that health care is starting to founder took to the pages of the New York Times to lay out the case for health care reform. I think he did a rather bad job of it. He could have done it with far, far fewer words, IMO. Anyhow, lets take a look at what he wrote,

These are people like Lori Hitchcock, whom I met in New Hampshire last week. Lori is currently self-employed and trying to start a business, but because she has hepatitis C, she cannot find an insurance company that will cover her.

I hate it when politicians do this. This is something politicians do all the time, put a face on the issue. One can argue it is to show the issue impacts people’s lives. Well no kidding. Most of what the government does impacts people’s lives. So I find this explanation weak. What I think it is, is an appeal to emotions. “Don’t pass my legislation and you are going to make people like Lori Hitchcock suffer.” I find it rather dishonest since it skirts the actual issues with reforming health care and instead is an attempt to get people to make a decision based on emotion instead.

However, there is a second bit of dissembling here as well. Of course Lori Hitchcock can’t get insurance, she has a pre-existing condition. Insurance cannot and was never designed to cover pre-existing conditions. Its like saying, I can’t cut down a tree with a spoon therefore we need national legislation so that we can cut down trees with spoons. Really? Are you just dishonest or stupid? James laid out the reasoning by looking at car insurance. If you get into a wreck then buy insurance the insurance company is not going to cover your “pre-existing” wreck of a car. Why? The accident already happened, there is no question of “if you get into an accident” you were already in one. Same thing here.

Now maybe we should figure out a way to cover pre-existing conditions, but is insurance really the right vehicle for doing that? Maybe there is some other policy we could put in place to deal with it, or not. But to say insurance companies are being bad in this case is just irresponsible and dishonest pablum. The insurance companies are looking out for their shareholders and possibly even their workers. That is not bad, that is being a good corporation.

I hear more and more stories like these every single day, and it is why we are acting so urgently to pass health-insurance reform this year. I don’t have to explain to the nearly 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance how important this is. But it’s just as important for Americans who do have health insurance.

Wait one minute. Not all of those 46 million are people with pre-existing conditions. Some of that 46 million are people who have elected not to have health care. Some don’t even need it. Some do. To throw them all in and pretend like it is due to the vile depredations of health insurance companies is like blaming ADM for starvation in Africa.

First, if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family — coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job.

I’d love to see the mechanism for this. For example, suppose I like my current employer provide insurance, but I lose my job and my coverage. Then what? What if the public option or whatever takes it place doesn’t offer the coverage I had? What then?

In places like France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland they have choice and health care that will follow them. However, there is no public option, and no employer provided health care. In France health care is provided by non-profit health insurance funds, and in the Netherlands and Switzerland via competing health insurance companies.

Second, reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control, which will mean real savings for families, businesses and our government. We’ll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.

As I noted earlier, if there are billions and billions to be saved in Medicare and Medicaid, then start there. Hard to argue with clamping down on waste, fraud, and abuse, and I bet the Republicans would get behind it as well. But instead we have to have this massive pile of crap legislation that is hundreds and hundreds of pages long that nobody can read by themselves and who knows what is in there.

Second, this is just not in line with what the non-partisan CBO says about much of the legislation currently out there. The view is that the current legislation will add to costs and any savings are small or years down the road which we can’t wait for. In short, this paragraph is just…well its just downright misleading.

Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies.

And here Obama reveals what he is really on about. Not controlling costs or the rate of growth in costs, but in throwing out the goodies to the voters. If the issue is saving money and controlling costs and moving towards providing the best quality health care that is sustainable…why spend any savings on the elderly? This is where the bulk of our costs are already. Spending even more here is just simply astoundingly wrong.

This will not only help provide today’s seniors with the benefits they’ve been promised; it will also ensure the long-term health of Medicare for tomorrow’s seniors.

So…we spend more today so we can keep spending more tomorrow? Is that the argument?

And our reforms will also reduce the amount our seniors pay for their prescription drugs.

Look, more free stuff for seniors.

Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition.

Yes, yes we get it already Mr. President those insurance companies are evil and their executives are agents of Satan. Never mind that by separating out those who have pre-existing conditions insurance companies are doing precisely what they are supposed to be doing: providing insurance for those who are healthy in the event of becoming unhealthy. I don’t doubt there are insurance companies that engage in bad behavior such as trying to deny valid claims, but dealing with pre-existing conditions is not one of them.

In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain. But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary — truly risky — is the prospect of doing nothing.

No, what is truly scary is making an already unsustainable and dysfunctional system even worse. We are looking at spending considerably more money than we currently are and any saving that reform provides President Obama is promising to spend on seniors.

Premiums will continue to skyrocket. Our deficit will continue to grow. And insurance companies will continue to profit by discriminating against sick people.

Aside from the last part, none of this will likely change under the reform plans President Obama endorses. In fact, the last part will likely result in an increase in premiums and maybe even the deficit.

In the end, this isn’t about politics.

I love it when someone tells a bald faced lie. Of course this is about politics. It was one of his big promises during the campaign. If it isn’t about politics then why campaign on it. I’d also offer this suggestion, when you are trying to sell the public on something, try not to close with such an obvious lie.