is that Dems had better wake up and start making significant change they promised, not the fake change they're promoting in things like the Senate bill on healthcare, a big giveaway to insurance companies. She's suggesting that Palin's appeal is populist anger, the same emotion that propelled Obama to the WH. There is anger out here against elitism and elites, and Dems had better get in touch with ordinary people.

This isn't that they're refusing to "take criticism." It isn't criticism to basically lie about policies and positions. There are no death panels, etc. They should -- and have the right -- to push back against distortion and exaggeration.

Corporations are too powerful in this country to allow this to work. All that would happen is that the co-op would get watered down, watered down over time as corporations used their pooled resources to destroy it.

Kaiser and Blue Cross are already co-ops and they're outrageously expensive.

You have no idea if this will result in Republican support for healthcare and some magical bipartisanship to pass the bill. They are against any reform proposed by the federal government because they are anti-government, period.

Better to keep a robust public option for all states and allow for reconciliation to pass the legislation. Bush's taxcuts aren't tainted because they were passed by reconciliation, but because they're taxcuts for the wealthiest and helped deepen the deficit. No one remembers how that Bush bill was passed.

I say no to this idea, go for robust option across the board. No two-tier systems.

He spent an entire show on healthcare trying to personalize it. It was very moving. How can that be a waste? He has also spent show after show discussing the different bills and the politics around them.

This was not some one-shot deal, but just an enhancement of what he's already been doing, and what he plans to continue to do.

I think you're just uncomfortable with emotion and want to "dispense" with it, because it's "messy."

Stop complaining. Keith is doing a good job covering the politics and issues and the personalizing was just another approach to the topic for one night.

That no one speaks as well and clearly as Pres. Obama. His values and expression do not wear, they only grow on you. Republicans will always voice worst fears to see if they can jumble things up.

I don't get why they think they can preserve legislative victories down the line on other issues by doing a pass on healthcare reform now. Republicans will be obstructionist in the future no matter what happens. The administration is risking creating a punitive healthcare system with continuing rising costs and growing deficits by allowing a watered-down hybrid form.

Dems should get together and strategize. We know that republicans do that, and dems don't. A censure would be good. But also perhaps finding "code words" that combat republican "code words." Death panels, for instance, need to be countered with something about `end of life counseling that is voluntary.' Government takeover, the opposite code word is corporate takeover, and over something Americans have no say in, which is their health, that is being commoditized by republicans who always reward corporations over individuals. American health is being left to predatory corporations who are focused on profit and shareprices. Americans deserve better than having their health being commoditized into money for corporations.

They should say healthcare isn't a `government takeover' which brings out the militas, as republicans intend, but a government `intervention' and `mediation' to mediate between profit-oriented entities and American lives.

Dems should give this away: abortions paid for through any public option. They should be LOUD about it. That's where they should give in a clear way.

Dems are less smart about code words and how to use them.

We are witnessing one of the biggest sellouts of the American consumer to corporations in our lifetimes. Obama doesn't care about how the industry organizes itself financially. What he cares about is expanding healthcare to everybody, whether they can afford it or not. He also wants an end to insurance companies canceling on the basis of preexisting conditions, like what his mother faced and which he continually brings up. That's it.

So what this means is that if you can't afford the cost of healthcare, tough. You still have to pay for it or get penalized for not paying for it. In other words a backdoor tax through penalty fees goes to the government. So the incentive is to force you to pay "into" the industry, which of course, is what the industry wants. That is his stance. That's it. That's all you're going to get. It's a complete sellout of the American consumer to corporations.

Obama is as banal as Bush.

without the public option. Asking healthcare companies and medical people to regulate themselves and figure out ways to LOWER costs is just spitting in the wind. They'll never do it. And the republican proposal that the way you get competition is by opening up across state lines is phony. I live in NYC. If I buy Kansas insurance, the hospitals and medical centers will just bill me separately for anything the Kansas insurance doesn't pay. It's a complete red herring thrown out by republicans.