Page count for the new "health" "reform" bill: 1,990.

Page count for original HR 3200: 1,018.

Page count for HR676 single payer: 30.

But don't worry:

Isn't it time to have a Democratic President? A long quote from Taibbi, but a good one. And I'm glad we're starting this discussion now instead of in 2010 or, heaven forfend, 2012:

I’m personally of the opinion that our main problem lay with the fact that the Democratic Party as currently constituted is more afraid of losing the financial support of Wall Street and the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry than it is of losing progressive voters. In fact, I think I’ve put that wrong, because it implies that the Democratic Party pushes the agenda of industry insiders out of fear. That is a misread of the situation, I think.

Didn't want to let this one slip by:

In other healthcare news, the watchdog group Media Matters has revealed one of CNN’s regular on-air commentators is on the payroll of America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry lobbying group opposed to the current healthcare reform efforts. Until yesterday, CNN had never acknowledged Alex Castellanos’s affiliation. Media Matters revealed that Castellanos’s consulting firm, National Media, recently placed over $1 million of TV advertising for America’s Health Insurance Plans. Castellanos’s company has also done work for the Federation of American Hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry group PhRMA, and the HCA Sunrise Hospital.

Obama, in the Rose Garden, speaking to a gathering of physicians today:

Every one of you here today took an oath when you entered the medical profession. It was not an oath that you would spend a lot of time on the phone with insurance companies. (Laughter.) It was not an oath that you would have to turn away patients who you know could use your help. You did not devote your lives to be bean counters or paper pushers. You took an oath so that you could heal people. You did it so you could save lives.

... despite what anyone says, and I'm totally confident that Obama's vetting process will continue to produce public servants of the most awsum and unimpeachablest integritude, despite blips like chief speechwriter Jon Favreau, Commerce Secretary-designate Bill Richardson, and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, but doesn't this pose the appearance of conflict?

[Daschle's] finances [include] more than $300,000 in income from health-related companies that he might regulate as secretary....

And, even though a substantial proportion of that $300,000 must come from the insurance parasites that single payer would remove from the health care system, it's impossible for me to imagine that this would influence Daschle's views of what's "politically feasible [rhymes with weasel] and what isn't.