Single payer advocates argue that the only way forward with health care is to pull out the good parts that help people right away, declare victory, and reboot with an open and transparent process -- this time, for real. Naturally, the "progressive" access bloggers never refute these arguments directly, since that would give oxygen those who advocate the only policy on offer that can be shown to save money and lives, but apparently they've been talking privately among themselves about it. Here's the implicit "progressive" response and strategery (via Ackroyd at Eschaton):

The problem is, you give up on this and what do Democrats have to exclaim about doing for healthcare reform in 2010?

Who gives a shit?

Individual mandates? Making people buy crappy insurance from the same old insurers that will continue to find ways to exclude their claims and jack up their premiums?

Which none of the bills change.

Giveaways to the insurance industry of upwards of $600 billion in the form of the subsidies and credits given to the people who are forced to buy the crappy insurance?

Which none of the bills change.

The problem is, as Greg Sargent points out, is that Lincoln, Landrieu, Nelson, and Lieberman share a characteristic of the Republicans: they just don't really give a shit that people are suffering.

Bollocks. That's not the problem at all.

Masthead

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Simon Johnson:

Competition between banks is good – on this ["immaculate regulation" advocate Charles] Calomiris and I agree. We differ with regard to whether allowing large quasi-monopoly banks to dominate the landscape (e.g., Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase today) is helpful to competition in any sense.

We should also throw into the mix three additional considerations.

Thank gawd we've got true progressives in office and a charismatic President who's a combination of Lincoln and FDR! Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis:

You can add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the group of Democrats or Obama allies (John Podesta, Paul Volcker, Roget Altman) calling for a value-added tax. (I predicted all of this days ago.) Here is Pelosi (via The Hill):

Times Online:

[Do read the comments. --lambert]