Health Care Debate

Lots of articles on the upcoming health care debate around.

digby in Choice pointed out Sen Chuck Grassley's (IA) idiocy. "He said that he was against the public option because a think tank study told him around a hundred and nineteen million people would opt out of private health insurance and join it."

"There you have it. He's obviously not including the uninsured, who are only opting out of horrible anxiety and bad health. He's admitting that over a third of the American people would leave their current crappy insurance company (or job they loathe but are stuck in because it's the only way they can get decent coverage) and choose a public health option, which is a big problem for the insurance companies. Therefore, Americans must not be given that choice."

A week ago Robert Reich saidThe Healthcare War is Now Official. "Yesterday the American Medical Association came out against a public option for health care. And yesterday the President reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of -- whether he's willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on an issue that will define his presidency."

"The last president to successfully take on the giant health care lobbies was LBJ. He got Medicare and Medicaid enacted because he weighed into the details, twisted congressional arms, threatened and cajoled, drew lines in the sand, and went to war against the AMA and the other giant lobbyists standing in the way. The question now is how much LBJ is in Barack Obama."