few people who are still reading the Sun are inspired to at least ask some questions. And if you read the other letter that was published today, you will see that it was one that took - of course - the opposite view that mine did; guess we have to have "balance" no matter what, huh? Even if it's the equivalent of saying the earth is flat.

But we have some distance to go with ordinary folks, many of whom are still parroting the tried-and-true baloney, like the government will be making your medical decisions for you. When I hear that crap from people, I always mention the fact that the private insurance companies have been doing this for some time - that restricting access to and coverage for care is but one of the ways the private insurance companies have been able to keep theor profits soaring.

What angers and saddens me is that I'm pretty sure the Dems also know this, but they are choosing to close their eyes to single payer - choosing to dismiss even any open and serious discussion about it - to what will be the detriment of the American people. It ought to be obvious to a lot of people who aren't as deeply into this issue as some of us are, that avoidance of even discussing single payer looks like a case of "we can't have them finding out how much better this way would be - and I can't take the hit on the loss in campaign and PAC donations - so we'll just pretend single payer is not being used successfully in all kinds of developed countries."

I have also started asking people if they have any concerns that this rush to reform the health care system is similar to the rush to bailout the banks, with insurance companies likely to reap the lions' share of the benefit - and what they will do or how they will feel once we start seeing headlines about Aetna and Wellpoint and Kaiser and United Health raking in record profits and rewarding their executives with record salaries and bonuses, if their own experience is and what they hear from others is that their own situations have not improved - that they are still fighting for coverage and fighting for treatment.

I think there is little that separates what the Congress did for the banksters from what they may be on the verge of doing with the insurance industry, and I wonder at what point people simply put their collective feet down and refuse to be run over by insurance industry dumptrucks lining up to load up with tons and tons of cash, while their Senator or Representative directs traffic.

the pushback at this point is coming primarily from Blue Dogs (and Rs, I guess) over costs, since the House and Senate have pretty much given away the store to get the insurers and pharma on board (and even the AMA!) - see this post.

according to a post up at TL (I've linked to BTD's post, which links to where the article originally appeared - HuffPo).

I nearly choked when I read this (emphasis is mine):

Peppering the president with questions were some of the progressive community's most prominent netroots voices from Jonathan Singer of MyDD to John Amato of Crooks and Liars. As in interviews and public statements past, the president stressed that the White House had already made major steps toward achieving reform, including bringing key stakeholders in the private sector to the table. Repeating his statement on Monday criticizing the posture of some of his Republican opponents, Obama accused those who sought to delay the bill as trying to kill the prospects of reform and, by extension, his presidency.

"I think it was telling, some of you may have seen, a Republican senator this weekend saying, we are just going to delay and delay because if we can stop Obama on this one, this is going to be his Waterloo. We will break him," he said of the remarks made by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C). "That was a quote. And I think it indicates the degree to which a lot of folks may sincerely think that the more time we take the better off we are going to be but I also think there are some who deliberately want to delay this process because they know the longer the special interests have to run negative ads or lobby members of congress, the more difficult it becomes to get this done."

And some of us think it should be killed because, so far, it seems like really bad legislation.

But for Obama, it's always - always - about him, even when he tells you (maybe especially when he tells you) it isn't.

It's an excellent article, on the history of the "public option" which began as something that might actually have been a good idea - a large-enrollment, "Medicare-like" option for the under-65 set - and how it got twisted down into what we are seeing in these bills.

... and start pounding on it.

It's such a massive takedown to the Obama blogger phone call, too. Answers the question "What is public option" even more damningly than before.

eom