Anonymous, I was neither advocating for nor criticizing user fees. Nor was I saying that there is something intrinsically Republican about user fees, as you seem to think I was saying. I was only making the point that in general Republican politicians are willing to support user fees, whereas they tend to oppose anything that might appear to be a tax.

Of course, the distinction between a government mandated fee and a tax is not always clear cut. And politicians play with the terms depending on their purposes.

Nonetheless, user fees, whether they are a good idea or not, are almost always regressive. They do not discriminate between the person paying the fee pased on their ability to pay. Therefore they cost relatively more, the less money you have. That is pretty much the definition of regressive, when it comes to things like fees and taxes. (Of course, in the case of the healthcare plans on the table, there is some extent to which ability to pay is taken into account, so they are only partly regressive--depending on whether you qualify for subsidies or not.)

And all that said, I think this is why Republican politicians are willing to support user fees that are for the most part regressive, as opposed to taxes. These sorts of user fee most significantly impact low and middle income people. Whereas when it comes to what Republicans call "taxes" they are usually talking about how to lessen the impact of government mandated payments by individuals who are high income.

"Mandates try to impose a free market logic on this problem, which is not solvable by the free market. Well, not in any kind of just way, or in a way that reflects our responsibility as a world leader and RICH country."

SocsandTwigs, I agree with your point above, for the most part. Only a true single payer system, administered by the federal government, and paid for through a system of progressive taxation is fair and just. Also, the Congression Budget Office, back in 1992-1993, concluded that it's the only system that would actually reduce healthcare costs.

That said, the mandate system that Clinton proposes is more fair and spreads out cost better, than Obama's system without mandates. The presence or lack of a mandate is not a trivial distinction. (And again, I'm an Obama supporter, naysayers out there, but sheesh, can't I agree with Clinton on anything? To say nothing of agreeing with Romney and Schwarzenegger who both also supported exactly this kind of mandate.)

This real issue here, which is mentioned in passing in this post, is Clinton's claim that she is the more "experienced" candidate. Obama's NAFTA criticism is a stand-in for this issue.

It would in no way be so patently obvious to so many people that Clinton has "more" "experience" than Obama, if she had not already served eight years in the White House, as essentially a very close counsel to the president, if not a co-president in many ways. So when Clinton makes her "experience" claim it is always an implicit reference to the White House years.

So it is fair to the say: If you want to take credit for you husband's administration, as a way of definining the central quality ("experience") that makes you a better candidate, then you should also be criticized for the policies of that administration.

It is just not logical for Clinton to try to have it both ways. She can't claim some sort of general amorphous gravitas and "experience" that she garners from having already served in the White House and then refuse any responsibility for anything that actually happened during those eight years.

So that's what this NAFTA debate is about. It's a mistake to get lost in the details of NAFTA itself or in who said what about NAFTA after that fact. It's just missing the point that this is about the possible meaningfulness of Clinton's "experience" claim.

I understand the position of people who want Clinton to stay in the race until the end and play out the democratic process. And there's something to be said for the excitement that the race currently generates and how it keeps attention on the Democrats.

But there is another extremely significant issue here, which is money. Presumably McCain will cinch the Republican nomination on March 4th, after which he will be free to spend all of his time raising money for the general election. On the other hand, a protracted race between Clinton and Obama, through to the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, or to the last big delegate hauls on May 6 and May 20, to say nothing of an unresolved Democratic primary that drags out until the convention in the end of August, would require Obama and Clinton to continue spending millions of dollars to compete against each other, depleting their resources, while not having time to raise money for the general election. This could give McCain a huge head start, possibly months of extra time to fund raise, campaign for himself, and campaign against the Democrats.

For the Democratic party, and for the chances on any Democrat winning the general election, this would be a disaster. So if it becomes clear at some point soon that Clinton can't win the race, or for that matter that Obama can't win, it is enormously in the interest of the Democratic party that the other gracefully withdraw. There is no point in having Clinton and Obama beat each other up for months, only to hand the general election to McCain.