• Health Care Fight
  • Obama Stumps for Public Plan
  • Centrist Dems Raise Big Concerns
  • Baucus, Grassley Try Salvage Bill
  • Industry Not Going to Play Nice
  • Debate Now Coming to a Boil

Lining Up Against the Public Option - MKH, The Blog

WANTED Person-centered, community-based Wellness Programs with Transparent Program Evaluation Structures,
and accessable consumer inputs mechanisms for program planning...

Any one have this ready to go, there's still stimulus money looking for a home...

Health care is a no-brainer.

Remove the words "65 and over" from the existing Medicare law.

Et Voila

Take a good look at Canada's health care system. Identify it's strenghts, it's weaknesses, and go from there!

Have a nice day!

- Perry

And Transform the current Reactive, Medical Services for sale format to a Wellness Format, facilitated by A Public Health Engineer and other Community Development Specialists in all branches of the Arts and Sciences and the
Technologies being spun off for building Families, Communities, Businesses and other collaborative ventures...

It is to the system's advantage to structure its activities to best support over-all Wellness for every body and
to provide a Minimum Level of Medical care to everyone without regard to the individual cost of any one person's
care...It serves a system's value for everyone to have minium care and whatever additional care they merrit
and can accuire...

Its amazing how much one can see, just by looking...

Just so happens I belong to Kaiser Permanente, whose model would cover all 300 million Americans for less money than we all now spend for inferior coverage for 250 million. Here is the difference:

1. No lawsuits. All Kaiser members agree to binding arbitration for any and all disputes. There goes 20%

2. No insurance companies. Another 20%

3. Electronic recordkeeping, cutting clerical costs. Call it 10%

So for half the money, you get real, honest-to-goodness health care.

If I were Obama, I would COPY THIS MODEL.

The Healthcare War Has Officially Begun - Robert Reich, Salon
ObamaCare Can Be Defeated - Yuval Levin & Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard
White House's Secret Moves On Health Care - Marc Ambinder, CBS News

• Health Care Fight
  • Obama Addresses Health Care Cost
  • Says Key To Our Fiscal Future
  • Centrist Dems Raise Big Concerns
  • Why So Scared of a Public Plan?
  • How to Stop Socialized Care

The Healthcare War Has Officially Begun - Robert Reich, Salon

End the War on Drugs...Start a Wellness movement...

War on Drugs.

1969 - 2009

RIP

Health care bill brings on lobbying rush With health care reform, Congress is prepping to reshape roughly one-sixth of the economy. Big pharmaceutical and insurance companies have poured millions of dollars into lobbying over the broad strokes of the legislation. But even the details will send shocks through smaller players across the country, and they're spending money on K Street, too.

The Health Reform We Need & Are Not Getting
By Arnold Relman
Despite a presidential commitment to and wide popular support for a health care overhaul, the reforms now being debated are missing the main target. They will expand insurance coverage in the short term, but they will create a system even less affordable than the one we have.

BERNIE HORN
New Poll Shows Tremendous Support for Public Health Care Option Eighty-three percent of Americans favor and only 14 percent oppose "creating a new public health insurance plan that anyone can purchase" according to EBRI, a conservative business research organization. This flatly contradicts conservatives' loudest attack against President Obama's plan to provide quality, affordable health care for all.

ROBERT B. REICH
The Healthcare War is Now Official robertreich.blogspot.com - The American Medical Association came out against a public option for health care. And 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 President can't do this alone. You must weigh in and get everyone you know to weigh in, too.

CLIVE CROOK
Medicare For All May Be The Cure ft.com - Medicare for all would give the U.S. truly universal coverage and better control of costs. It would preserve choice of doctor and hospital, and private insurance for supplementary services could co-exist for those who wanted it. The demise of employer-provided plans would make labor more mobile and relieve workers of the worry that losing their job means losing their health insurance.

Obama Faces The AMA Health Care Blog's Michael Millenson previews today's presidential address to the AMA: "Look for Obama to remind the doctors how many more uninsured patients they're seeing today and how much more involved Medicare has become in setting doctor pay scales."; NYT speculates on possible concession restraining malpractice liability; OurFuture.org FLASHBACK: "Capping jury awards would have almost no impact on health costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But it would help conservatives protect insurance company profits, instead of patients victimized by fraud or negligence." More background from Committee for Justice for All.; Sen. Dick Durbin offered mild resistance to taxing employer benefits on CBS' Face The Nation; USA Today reports Baucus will unveil draft bill this week: "More details about public insurance and how lawmakers intend to pay for overhauling the health care system, which could cost more than $1 trillion [over 10 years], are likely to emerge this week when the Senate Finance Committee releases a draft bill."; The Hill recaps Sen. Kent Conrad's criticism during CNN interview of public plan option: "'In a 60-vote environment, you've got to attract some Republicans as well as holding virtually all the Democrats together, and that, I don't believe, is possible with a pure public option. I don't think the votes are there,' Conrad said on the morning talk show ..."; The Treatment's Jacob Hacker dissects the weakness in Conrad's compromise: "[Non-profit cooperatives] have been hard to establish or extend, and when they have been established, they've been under constant siege from doctors and insurers and eventually largely operated as private insurance plans or weak purchasing arrangements. It is hard to see how any sort of decentralized cooperative model could do what a public plan can do ..."; CNN has more on Senate "moderate" criticism on public plan option; Change.org's Tim Foley on the track record of the so-called moderates: "... if your proposed solution for our health care crisis is something we already have, then by definition, it's already proven that it does not dramatically change the game on controlling costs or expanding access."; Americans United for Change air new ad challenging obstructionists to get behind the 62% supporting the president's plan; W. Post reports intra-party dispute over paying for health care reform;

Skyrocketing Medical Costs Putting Care Out of Reach

Skyrocketing medical costs are pricing care out of reach for families and business, leaving us without good health insurance choices.

Since 2000, family health insurance premiums have risen 57%.

47 million Americans are uninsured, up from 38 million in 2000, including 9 million kids.

Only 60% of American businesses offered health benefits in 2007, down from 69% in 2000.

More than half of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills.

Obama Must Take On the Giant Lobbyists Blocking Health Care Reform

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

Health and Wellness: This is one of those battles that define the state of American democracy.

Obama's Government Health Plan Will Look Like Public Schools
Geoffrey P. Hunt
Obama's health care plan isn't goign to look like a larger scale Medicare or national health scheme in Canada or the UK. It's just as likely Obama's inspiration is the failed public school model. More

Health Care to Be Decided in the Next Six Weeks - Al Hunt, Bloomberg
Obama's Plan: Hypocritical and Dishonest - Robert Samuelson, Newsweek
Major Tax Battle Looms - Lori Montgomery & Ceci Connolly, Washington Post
How Obama Needs to Sell Health Care - Stan Greenberg, The New Republic
Govt Health Care Not the Answer - Mark Sanford & Scott Atlas, Wash Times

Will Obama Raise Middle-Class Taxes to Fund Health Care? President Obama is promoting a big expansion in federal health care spending, and Democratic leaders are scrambling to find ways to pay for it. The plan is expected to cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade, but the administration has promised that health care legislation won't add to already huge federal budget deficits. In a new paper, Cato scholars Michael D. Tanner and Chris Edwards argue that expanding government health care will likely involve huge tax increases on the middle class.

• "Will Obama Raise Middle-Class Taxes to Fund Health Care?," by Michael D. Tanner and Chris Edwards

Paying for Obamacare
Michael D. Tanner on health care on TownHall.com.

What the Failure of the "Massachusetts Model" Tells Us about Health Care Reform When Massachusetts passed its pioneering health care reforms in 2006, critics warned that they would result in a slow but steady spiral downward toward a government-run health care system. Three years later, those predictions appear to be coming true. In a new study, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner argues, "With the 'Massachusetts model' frequently cited as a blueprint for health care reform, it is important to recognize that giving the government greater control over our health care system will have grave consequences for taxpayers, providers, and health care consumers."

• "Massachusetts Miracle or Massachusetts Miserable: What the Failure of the 'Massachusetts Model' Tells Us about Health Care Reform," by Michael D. Tanner

HEALTH CARE
The Public Option
Few issues are more pressing to President Obama right now than health care reform. As the New York Times recently reported, Obama has decided to "exert greater control over the health care debate," with an "intense push for legislation" that includes "speeches, town-hall-style meetings and much deeper engagement with lawmakers." Yesterday's speech to the American Medical Association (AMA) was a major part of this effort, since the group recently registered its opposition to the creation of a public insurance plan -- a key plank of Obama's health reform efforts. "The public option is not your enemy, it is your friend," Obama told the nearly 500 attendees at the address. Indeed, as The Wonk Room's Igor Volsky has explained, the public option remains the best way to "restore competition into the consolidated health insurance market, lower health care premiums, lead the way in innovation, and improve health quality." (The Wonk Room has put together a document debunking the top myths about the public option here, and the Center for American Progress Action Fund has a new analysis showing how few health insurance choices most Americans currently have.)

DOCTORS SUPPORT A PUBLIC PLAN: The AMA is opposed to the creation of a public health insurance option, claiming that it "threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans." While the organization has tried to walk back its criticism, it still seems to oppose the essential aims of a public plan: the ability to negotiate cheaper rates with providers and push private insurers to do the same. Obama's speech yesterday before the AMA's House of Delegates -- "the burial ground of health overhaul efforts past" -- was thus widely anticipated. In fact, he is the first president to address the group since Ronald Reagan in 1983. In the speech, Obama stayed firm in his commitment to a robust public option. "Insurance companies have expressed support for the idea of covering the uninsured -- and I welcome their willingness to engage constructively in the reform debate. I'm glad they're at the table," Obama said. "But what I refuse to do is simply create a system where insurance companies suddenly have a whole bunch more customers on Uncle Sam's dime but still fail to meet their responsibilities." Not all doctors are on the AMA's side. Although the group still calls itself the "house of medicine," only about half its members are actually practicing physicians and the group "represents maybe 20% of physicians in this country." Indeed, doctors nationwide have begun to distance themselves from the AMA. Doctors For America -- a grassroots organization representing doctors in all fifty states -- recently issued a statement and hosted a conference call in support of a robust public option.

THE GHOSTS OF 1993: Part of the drive behind Obama's recent "push" on health care legislation, according to the New York Times, is the memory of President Clinton's failure to pass reform. Yesterday, The Progress Report joined other progressive bloggers for a small meeting with Clinton at his office in Harlem. He said that Obama has a far better chance of passing health care legislation than he himself did in 1993, when Clinton faced a hostile political environment and severe budget constraints. "I had just passed a budget in which we raised taxes on the wealthy, cut taxes on the working poor, and were on track to reducing the deficit, and...we couldn't raise taxes again," explained Clinton. "So when I had an employer-mandate that in effect, guaranteed that the health insurance companies would be joined by the small business community -- at least the organized small business community -- which made it harder to pass." Clinton said that he believes Obama will work with the Senate to achieve the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. But he urged Obama to be ready to use the budget reconciliation process if necessary -- which would require just 51 votes to pass health care -- to achieve a bill that would ensure universal coverage, cut costs, improve the delivery system, and boost preventive care. "If he can't get a good bill, I wouldn't give away the store on that," he said.

CO-OPTING THE DEBATE: Although the AMA opposes the robust public option that Obama is proposing, it has said that it is "willing to consider other variations of the public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress." One of the alternatives that has received the most attention is Sen. Kent Conrad's (D-ND) idea of consumer-owned health cooperatives that would "be subject to the same standards [as private plans]." But co-opts, however defined, are not a substitute for a public plan with the capacity to "improve health quality by championing payment innovations or other delivery system reforms." As Volsky writes, "After all, one of the advantages of a truly national public plan is its ability to improve care quality by spearheading reforms and innovations."

Last year, millions of Americans came together for a great purpose.

Folks like you assembled a grassroots movement that shocked the political establishment and changed the course of our nation. When Washington insiders counted us out, we put it all on the line and changed our democracy from the bottom up. But that's not why we did it.

The pundits told us it was impossible -- that the donations working people could afford and the hours volunteers could give would never loosen the vise grip of big money and powerful special interests. We proved them wrong. But as important as that was, that's not why we did it.

Today, spiraling health care costs are pushing our families and businesses to the brink of ruin, while millions of Americans go without the care they desperately need. Fixing this broken system will be enormously difficult. But we can succeed. The chance to make fundamental change like this in people's daily lives -- that is why we did it.

The campaign to pass real health care reform in 2009 is the biggest test of our movement since the election. Once again, victory is far from certain. Our opposition will be fierce, and they have been down this road before. To prevail, we must once more build a coast-to-coast operation ready to knock on doors, deploy volunteers, get out the facts, and show the world how real change happens in America.

And just like before, I cannot do it without your support.

So I'm asking you to remember all that you gave over the last two years to get us here -- all the time, resources, and faith you invested as a down payment to earn us our place at this crossroads in history. All that you've done has led up to this -- and whether or not our country takes the next crucial step depends on what you do right now.

Will you donate whatever you can afford to support the campaign for real health care reform in 2009?

It doesn't matter how much you can give, as long as you give what you can. Millions of families on the brink are counting on us to do just that. I know we can deliver.

Thank you, so much, for getting us this far. And thank you for standing up once again to take us the rest of the way.

Sincerely,

President Barack Obama

Beware Incomplete CBO Health Care Analysis NYT and AP hand obstructionists new talking points and hype preliminary CBO analysis of Sen. Ted Kennedy's health care bill showing a "cost at least $1 trillion over 10 years but [would] only insure about 16 million" leaving 36M uninsured; BUT it's a preliminary estimate of an incomplete draft bill; W. Post's Ezra Klein: "Currently, however, the analysis doesn't include any expansion of Medicaid, the creation of a public plan, or the implementation of an employer mandate, because the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's draft legislation punted on those issues. As those policies get added into the mix, these numbers might well change."; The Treatment's Jonathan Cohn adds: "...if you throw an employer mandate into the mix, everything changes."; President doesn't capitulate on malpractice punishments. McClatchy; CQ notes Congress is not yet following Obama's lead on malpractice reform; Bloomberg notes malpractice awards are not what is driving up health care costs: "the annual jury awards and legal settlements involving doctors amounts to 'a drop in the bucket' in a country that spends $2.3 trillion annually on health care, said Amitabh Chandra, an economist at Harvard University, in a telephone interview. Chandra estimated the cost at $12 per person in the U.S., or about $3.6 billion, in a 2005 study. Insurer WellPoint Inc. said in a report last month that liability wasn't driving up health premiums."; GoozNews assess what the speech can't do: "there are plenty of landmines on the road to reform. The hospitals, insurance companies, drug and biotech companies, and specialty physicians are being asked to take serious haircuts. Tying repeal of the Bush tax cut for the wealthy to health care reform is much better than taxing health benefits, but isn't a slam dunk..."; HCAN's Jason Rosenbaum reminds "The AMA Doesn't Represent Doctors": "If I and the AMA were being truthful, we could say that the AMA, which represents a small minority of doctors, mostly specialists or retired, is against President Obama's health care plan."; Cohn adds: "the AMA represents an ever-shrinking portion of the physician population. And, by all appearances, it represents the profession at both its most craven and conservative."; Baucus to propose his version soon. Reuters; NYT's David Brooks predicts WH will force hard compromises at the last minute: "This brings you to the final stage, the scrum. This is the set of all-night meetings at the end of the Congressional summer session when all the different pieces actually get put together. You want the scrum to be quick so that the bill is passed before some of the interests groups realize that they've been decapitated. You want the scrum to be frantic so you can tell your allies that their reservations might destroy the whole effort (this is how you are going to get the liberals to water down the public plan and the moderates to loosen their fiscal rectitude)."

CHRISTOPHER BEAM
Why Health Care Boggles The Conservative Mind slate.com — One reason health care is so hard to talk about sanely is that it's full of paradoxes, like "How does the United States have one of the best health care systems in the world, yet also one of the worst?" Similar paradoxes plague both parties. But the questions facing Republicans as they navigate the health care debate are especially difficult. Here are some of the trickiest ones. If you really want to rattle a conservative's mind, ask these.

EZRA KLEIN
Health Reform for Beginners: The Suprisingly Important, Occasionally Controversial, Dartmouth Atlas Studies voices.washingtonpost.com — If you were to distill the administration's health-care reform theory down to two sentences, they would read something like this: the cost of health care varies enormously between states, but there is no obvious connection between expensive care and better outcomes. Thus, the most promising goal for reform is to make the high-cost states look more like the low-cost states.

TIMOTHY NOAH
The Isolationism of Health Reform slate.com — The health care debate is, within mainstream political discourse, isolationism's last refuge. Every day Washington's leaders tell us that we live in an interdependent world with a globalized economy. But change the subject to reform of the health care system, and the community of nations abruptly vanishes.

DR. MARGARET FLOWERS AND DR. CAROL PARIS
The AMA Does Not Represent Us truthdig.com — It is a common misconception that the American Medical Association speaks on behalf of most American physicians but that is a misconception with very serious consequences at such a critical time in the health care reform debate. In fact, the AMA represents less than one-third of America's physicians, and half of those are retired. In fact, the American Medical Student Association endorses universal health care reform.

Dean Baker's economic commentary

Health care reform arithmetic.

When a government mandates health insurance
June 16, 2009
Federalism, the "laboratory of democracy", has already produced an experiment in something rather like Obamacare, and the results are not promising. More

Back to ACORN General Hospital
Carol Peracchio
Guess who's going to be much better off thanks President Obama's health care scheme? More

Medical Tort Reform
Jeffrey Folks
President Obama was booed this week at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in Chicago More

Government Health Care Won't Fly
Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.
What if we ran the airlines the way we run health care? More

HEALTH CARE -- BLUE DOGS MEET SECRETLY WITH CENTRIST REPUBLICANS TO WORK ON 'MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD' HEALTH PLAN: Citing the expected high cost of comprehensive health care reform as planned by Democrats in the Senate, fiscally conservative Democrats in the House, known as the Blue Dogs, have been meeting in secret with centrist Republicans to work out a "middle-of-the-road" health care reform package. When asked last Friday about conversations between the two centrist groups, Blue Dog Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN) confirmed that his colleagues are "actively working on compromises" on a number of issues. Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) confirmed that he has had talks with a number of conservative Democrats, including Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI). The centrists are reportedly discussing "including the option of forming insurance cooperatives," but will not offer a public insurance option. According to Dean Barker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the relationship between the insurance industry and many Blue Dog members is proving to be a significant road block to reform. Baker explained, "The biggest obstacle to reform is obviously the corruption of Congress. The insurance and pharmaceutical companies, the hospitals and medical supply industry and other beneficiaries of the enormous waste in the system all have powerful congressional lobbies. This gives them enormous influence in Congress, especially among Blue Dog Democrats, who are heavily dependent on special-interest contributions." Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-OH) appraised the Blue Dog influence, commenting that the Blue Dogs have "a lot of leverage" at the moment.

ROBERT BOROSAGE
Private Muscle And The Public Option In Health Care We're headed into the end game for health care reform. The president has put himself in the arena. The insurance lobby is unleashing the scare campaign. A strong bill will pass the House. But at this point, too many senators are still standing in the way.

CBO Analysis Of Partial Health Care Bill Sparks Cost Cut Push
Sen. Baucus looks to appease cautious CBO bean-counters with fewer consumer subsidies. Politico: "Stung by Republican criticism of the $1.3 trillion price-tag on Sen. Ted Kennedy's health bill, Democrats involved in Senate Finance Committee negotiations pledged Tuesday night to release a plan that keeps costs lower - but still about $1 trillion over 10 years ... Baucus confirmed Tuesday night that he and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) will introduce a budget-neutral bill that comes in around $1 trillion."; CQ gets Sen. Chuck Grassley's take: "Grassley told reporters Tuesday that people with incomes of up to 300 percent or 400 percent of the federal poverty level would likely be eligible. 'Some of us would prefer it would be 300 percent of poverty,' he said, meaning an income of $66,150 for a family of four."; CBO chief offers suggestions to squeeze spending. W. Post; The User's Guide to the Health Reform Galaxy chides the cautious CBO: "CBO operates within the necessary constraints of what has been, and what is, rather than what will be ..."; Robert Borosage on HuffPost excoriates Senators for hesitating on lowering costs via the public plan option: "We shouldn't let cynicism lower our expectations. Soaring health care costs and the human tragedy of those without insurance can no longer be ignored. Reform can't be postponed. It is a stunning disservice that Republicans have taken themselves out of serious discussion. And it is an open scandal that Senators are catering to the private insurance industry that has profited from the problem rather than helping to solve it. We must expect more and demand more from those given the privilege to represent us."; President and HHS Sec. give oxygen to Conrad co-op compromise. Obama on CNBC: "the cooperative idea that Kent Conrad has put forward, if that is a better way to reduce costs and help families and businesses with their health care, I'm more than happy to accept those good ideas."; AP interviews Sec. Sebelius: "She spoke positively of a compromise idea that envisions consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives, like rural electricity or agriculture co-ops. They would get started with seed money from taxpayers but then compete without government control."; Daschle and Dole to offer proposal today, including a tax on employer benefits. W. Post; Blue Dogs looking to undermine public plan option? The Hill: "Members of the centrist GOP 'Tuesday Group,' the New Democrat Coalition and the 52-member Blue Dog Coalition have been discussing both the policies and politics of moving their middle-of-the-road ideas in a body of Congress usually dominated by liberal or conservative ideology."

Budget Chief Sees "Hard Slog" on Health Reform ;Former Senators to Present Health Reform Compromise

Medicare Is in Deep Trouble. Why Imitate It? - Shikha Dalmia, Forbes

Wealth-Care Reform
Ezra Klein
June 18, 2009


From our June issue:
Fixing our health-care system will make us more economically secure. It won't make us much healthier.

Related: Robert Kuttner warns that the devil is in the details when it comes to health-care reform.

In May, thousands demonstrated at Seattle's March and Rally for Health Care Reform. (Flickr/SEIUHealthcare 775w)

No More Pretense for Health Reform
CBO Estimates 36 million will still be uninsured ten years from now under most robust Democratic Plan

by Kevin Zeese / June 17th, 2009 (12)

The cloudy rhetoric of “universal health care” is being clarified with the first Congressional Budget Office initial scoring of a health care bill. The two key issues of cost and coverage are not going to be solved with the health care reform being considered.

The CBO scored the Kennedy-Dodd proposal, the most robust of the reform proposals actually being considered, and the bottom line is that it will leave 36 million without coverage a decade from now. That is not what the Democrats and Obama have been promising. It is nowhere near universal coverage.

According to the CBO, “Once the proposal …

(Full article …)

When We Talk About Health Care, We're Forgetting One Important Group: The Already Insured

Michael Bader, AlterNet

Health and Wellness: The suffering fostered by our system isn't limited to those who can't afford access to it. And their voices should be part of the debate, too.

Wealth-Care Reform
Ezra Klein
June 18, 2009


From our June issue:
Fixing our health-care system will make us more economically secure. It won't make us much healthier.

Related: Robert Kuttner warns that the devil is in the details when it comes to health-care reform.

Senate Flinches on Public Plan Option W. Post's Ezra Klein assesses new health care draft from Senate Finance Cmte: "The numbers tell the story....this is what I'd term 'comprehensive incrementalism.' It makes everything a bit better. It is not radical. It is not root-and-branch reform. For all the concerns about cost, there is no strong public plan able to negotiate low rates and implement aggressive reforms. The health insurance exchanges are a step forward, but they're state-based, and there's even room for multiple competing exchanges in a single state. They could be made substantially stronger."; The Walker Report is harsher: "the most part Baucus's proposal is almost identical to that of the AHIP lobby."; Health Care Blog's Matthew Holt says it may be worse than nothing: "This one is barely worth passing. We might be better off leaving the system and having a proper collapse before we start again in the next recession (which at the rate we're going might be this one)."; Bloomberg quotes criticism from health expert Harold Pollack: "'I'm taken aback by the extent to which they have pulled back,' said Harold Pollack, faculty chair at the University of Chicago Center for Health Administration Studies. 'The drive for bipartisanship for its own sake really will produce a less efficient, less well-crafted, less effective piece of legislation in the end.'"; Wonk Room's Igor Volsky stresses public plan option would be the best way to lower costs; WH Press Sec Robert Gibbs doesn't back off public plan option. "We're a strong supporter of including that option because, as I said, it provides choice and competition and it drives down costs."; HCAN rounds up results of grassroots push to get Senators on record to support public plan option; Change.org's Tim Foley notes CBO gave other instructions how to reduce costs; Time's Karen Tumulty cautions: "[The Senate Finance draft] gives a clue to their direction, although it is certain to change--perhaps substantially--between now and the time the committee begins formally drafting the bill after the July Fourth recess."; and more...

ISAIAH J. POOLE
Proving We Can Afford Public Plan Choice While Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has been doing his best to block the most critical element of health care reform-a public health insurance option that can keep private insurers honest-progressive groups are working behind the scenes to come up with the proposals that will put to rest the excuse that taxpayers can't afford the public plan option.

MONICA SANCHEZ
Nothing Intimidates Health Insurers Like the Public Health Insurance Plan Most people don't trust health insurance companies and with good reason. They are a powerful industry that is not easily prodded, pushed or intimidated into doing the right thing by their members.

Why Scrap A Health Care System That 250 Million Americans Like?
By LARRY ELDER

Patch-And-Fill Won't Achieve Health Reform
By MARIE COCCO

Dems May Fall Into VAT To Pay For Health Plan
By DAVID HOGBERG
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY