My HOPE is that the lean-to-the-left, lean-to-the-right presumptive nominee will see that his base wants universal, not just kids. You folks can run from anything that seems Hillary-connected, but it's still the right idea.

is not only morally imperative, but would be an economic boon to corporate and small business interests. Consider the potential for increased employment if businesses did not have to factor in the cost of insurance benefits. why not a universal tax - as hillary clinton proposed - similar to social security? if it takes some money out of your pocket, it would certainly be less than what you take out and hand to insurers, medical providers and drug companies, as it would be spread out over the millions who are now uninsured. and those interests would be served by being able to rely on payment for goods and services for each and every patient who is served. factor in transparency so that patients can make informed choices on who treats them and offset malpractice by permitting informed choice on who and what will or will not - or may not - be the outcome. educate patients so that they cannot plead ignorance, do not shield doctors who repeatedly do harm. finally, as for senator obama's plan, parents of children need coverage too, or those children will be no more secure in their families and homes than before.

that if you think government health care is so great, you should consider the "government health care" he received from the North Vietnamese. No, seriously, he made this exact argument on This Week with George S.

Most of these groups existed during the last health care fight, but labor sat that fight out. They had spent as much as they could fighting against the DLC on NAFTA.

If the DLC had made universal health care a higher priority than welfare-reform and free-trade at the beginning of Clinton's first term, all of this money would have been available back then and we may well have had health care for the past decade.

Of course, such a gift to the left would probably have cost the Democrats the house and the Senate in the '94 elections . . .

Dear siebecker:

Wow, I missed that McCain comment. Wonder if he'd care to extend his critique of "government healthcare" by advocating the abolition of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA health system.

The odd thing about this over-the-top rhetoric is that McCain's own health proposal is almost certainly a lot more radical than anything being proposed by Obama. It's based explicitly on trying to push as many Americans as possible out of group insurance plans -- private as well as public -- into the individual market, if not out of insurance altogether.

A majority of the people want some sort of government plan like Medicare. It's always easier for politicians to do something when the majority of the people are behind you.

"My health insurance went from $1200 to $3200 a year!"

That was the threat in the second commercial.

I spend $1400/mo insuring my family.

Here's an oldie but a goodie:

Extend Medicare to all citizens. An Executive Order would do it (and I KNOW that folks will say it can't, but it can) - the insurance companies will shriek bloody murder as they're dragged off to hell, but that's a good thing.

There is no acceptible solution that allows for insurance companies in the business of providing basic health care to all Americans.

NONE.

Thinking that the inscos would even begin to negotiate such a solution was the basic failure of the Clinton effort.

No candidate can say this out loud, of course, not and get elected. Or even survive, really.

Still, let me say it again. Medicare for ALL citizens. If you want more, then you certainly can pay for that.

For the forseeable future, it simply cannot happen. The progressive movement is not even committed to it. They want to settle for Obama's plan, which fails the common sense test by not requiring coverage of healthy, young adults who do not feel that they need health care. This means that self-selection will ensure that prices remain too high for the majority of people and that the system will continue to be burdened by having to care for lower middle class people who could have paid in but chose not to because they perceived - wrongly - that they didn't need health insurance. And the higher prices are, the more people will opt out, which means that the burden for unfunded health care will be higher.

You're doing a real bang up job pal! When's the other guy coming back? Anyone who can actually take the time to, you know, actually post some items in this spoace?

A large part of the opposition to the 1994 plan was that the Republicans didn't want the Democrats to be successful in such a major way. A logical argument won't overcome that even if you can show that the plan is good for our economy as well as our citizens.

The Democrats need to have enough of a majority to push any new healthcare plan through Congress with almost no GOP support. Giving into Republicans' inevitable demand to be included just means giving them a chance to make sure that nothing is done.

Any compromise that Republicans would find acceptable will inevitably render any results worthless.

And frankly, even Obama knows Clinton's plan made more sense. Insurance has to be purchased by all to be available to those who need it and keep costs low. I have no doubt that he called for a "non-mandatory system" during the primary because

1)a lot of people (reasonably or not) are still spooked by the idea of "nationalized" health care (which Hillary's plan is NOT but its more like a single payer system than Obama's plan), which "sounds" close to a mandated system

2) Obama secretly favors a single payer system. During a debate, when asked about the health care system, he prefaced his reply with something like" Well, given that we already have a system in place that isn't a single payer system...." I took notice of the statement because to me it meant that really he favors a single payer system. I think a lot of Americans would if we could get over our "fear of being socialists"

and

2) Hillary could take the political risk of calling for the mandated system because she had more credibility on this issue, having worked on it (albeit unsuccessfully) in 1992. Obama, had he called for a mandatory system, would have damn near been labeled a socialist.

Either way, you can bet that the new Obama/Hillary party dynamic means that Hillary's plan get the center stage in congress and that the President will sign it into law.

I can't wait.