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Look, I want single-payer, too. But this bill has a lot of things in it that will quickly offer substantial relief, and I'm not joining the wholesale condemnation. Even Howard Dean called it "real reform" tonight and said he'd vote for it.

There's some good things and some bad things. Actually, a lot of good - and you won't have to wait more than a few months for relief.

The bill keeps kids on their parents' insurance until age 27, there's a temporary insurance pool until the public option is operable, extension of COBRA benefits (still looking for details), steps to close the Medicare doughnut hole, a ban on lifetime coverage limits, and the end of rescissions, except in case of fraud. It also expands Medicaid.

The bill also adds a voluntary long-term care program (and if your parents have seen their insurance carriers crash and burn this year, you know what a blessing this will be). It also funds a temporary reinsurance program that subsidizes employers offering health benefits for retirees aged 55-64.

As Jane pointed out this morning, there's no requirement for generic versions of high-priced breast cancer drugs. In fact, the bill sweetens the pot for Big Pharma by extending patents on those drugs every time they make a minor change. (Like making an extended release formula.) Essentially, it's a monopoly in perpetuity. (And guess which netroots favorite voted for it? Rep. Patrick Murphy. He's got Big Pharma employing many, many voters in his district.)

Breast cancer survivors, organize! No one likes to be perceived as beating up on cancer patients.

Potentially bad: No Medicare+5. At first look, this means fewer savings - and thus, higher premiums. However, these rates will still be negotiated at a national level, and it does not preclude Medicare +5.

In a bill this complex and controversial, there are, of course, things that will make us swallow hard. From what I'm hearing so far, the subsidies are inadequate. As soon as I have concrete numbers, I'll put them up.

I'd say the subsidies are the single most productive focus for the netroots. Call your congress critter, tell him or her (or it) that the subsidies must be adequate - or else.

And if they say they have to respect the ceiling President Obama asked for, ask them why it doesn't bother them when they have to pay for wars - only health care. Tell them you will not pay more money for less coverage, that this is a deal-breaker for Democratic voters.

Send them a strong message.

UPDATE: Jamie at Intoxination cites Politico:

The House health care bill unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.

I pulled out the calculator. How does this sound - $425.9 million per word? That's how much each of the 2,174 words in the authorization for the Iraq war has cost so far and the price keeps going up.

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Howard Dean is right as usual. Dr. Nancy points out the New York Times/CBS poll which says that 65% of Americans are in favor of a public option and asks Dean where the disconnect is. Dean points out the obvious-- the money going into the campaign coffers of elected officials that they're paying more attention to than their constituents.

I agree with Howard Dean. If the Democrats pass a bill without a public option, there is going to be a huge backlash against the party. I know Howard must feel like a broken record at this point, but I'm glad he's still out there pushing for the Democrats to do the right thing.

Via Ezra Klein, this heartening news. As Howard Dean said, there's simply no point without a good public option:

According to Congress Daily, the CBO says attaching the public plan to Medicare rates will save even more money than originally thought:

In a bid to wrangle concessions from the Blue Dog Coalition on healthcare reform, House leaders Thursday released CBO estimates for liberals' preferred version of the public option that show $85 billion more in savings than for the version the Blue Dogs prefer.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., a Blue Dog co-chair, said any possible new momentum toward a public option tethered to Medicare rates is, in part, "because of the cost issue" and the updated CBO score.

The original House bill required the public plan to pay providers 5 percent more than Medicare reimbursement rates. But as part of a package of concessions to Blue Dogs, the House Energy and Commerce Committee accepted an amendment that requires the HHS Secretary to negotiate rates with providers. That version of the plan will save only $25 billion.

In total, a public plan based on Medicare rates would save $110 billion over 10 years. That is $20 billion more than earlier estimates, a spokesman for House Speaker Pelosi said.

In other words, the conservatives want to spend $85 billion more than the liberals do. Moreover, the CBO is estimating savings to the government. That is to say, the $85 billion reflects reduced federal spending on subsidies because premiums in the public plan will be lower. Savings to individuals and businesses paying lower premiums will be much larger than $85 billion, and politically, much more important.

So there I was, driving to my friends' house for dinner and babysitting last night when Howard Dean called me.

I'd been scheduled to talk to him after his appearance at the Philadelphia Free Library yesterday, but there was some kind of miscommunication and it didn't happen.

Anyway, he apologized for the mix-up and we had an interesting discussion. (Remember, none of this is verbatim. I was driving while we talked, and I've reconstructed as best I can.)

The first thing I said was, "Every single problem you described at today's talk, logistical and financial, could be solved with single payer."

His response was along the lines of "And your point is?" As in, let's deal with what we have in front of us, I suppose.

So then I asked him what he thought the strategy was behind the administration starting the debate with the public option instead of single payer. "I think it was a terrible mistake," he said. "I think they were worried it would be called socialism." (Naturally, I agreed.)

Let's see. What else? He said the reason the focus of the campaign is on the finances of health care is because Obama was actually put in the White House by the under-35 voters, and while they're socially liberal, they're very conservative on the deficit and are convinced they won't be able to count on things like Social Security.

"You don't have to tell me," I said. "My kids are Ron Paul fans." He laughed and said, "Then you understand."

"Tell them if this bill doesn't pass, their sick parents will have to move in with them. That ought to do it," I advised.

(And I said that while the under-35 votes may have put Obama in the White House, I suspected the bulk of individual contributions came from baby boomers and he might want to look into that.)

I said the real problem with the current health care system was a matter of human dignity. I told him about a friend who's struggling with brain injury and has been turned down three times for Social Security disability. "They keep telling her she can work, but who's going to hire someone who doesn't know ahead of time if she'll be too sick to work?" I said.

He said yes, there's no question that the present system was a nightmare for the chronically ill or handicapped.

I told him I was really hoping the bill's final version included lowering the Medicare age to 55, "since I turn 55 next week."

"I'd like to see it lowered to 50, that would make a lot of sense," he replied. We talked about how it would lessen the cost burden on employers and increase the chances of the over-50s getting rehired.

We also discussed the positive ripple effects we could expect from the public option - that it would lower the costs of auto insurance, and take work-related injuries out of the worker's comp system.

I talked about the strange Beltway bubble and asked if people working there really understood what was at stake out here.

He said no, it wasn't my imagination, the people in the Beltway really do live in a different universe - "especially the Senate. It really is like a club," he said. He corrected himself: "No, it is a club. And they're most concerned about their personal relationships with the other Senators, and then everything else. It's very strange."

Don't they understand how angry everyone is out here? I said. "If they put us in a position where we're paying more money for less coverage, it's going to be war." He said no, they really don't - although he keeps trying to tell them. He said we're looking at a real political disaster if they screw this up. "Because I'm on the outside, I get to say those things," he said.

Dean says not to worry about the Baucus bill, that the final version won't look anything like it "but everyone's sort of tiptoeing around, no one wants to say it out loud. They have to pass a bill out of Finance first, and then they'll change it."

I told him the perception from here is that the Baucus bill was the one that had the White House approval, and he said, "I can understand why you have that perception, but I don't think so at all."

I told him many of us despaired of any real change, and he reacted immediately. "You absolutely shouldn't be thinking that way," he said. He believes there's a "95 percent chance" of a real public option, and if there isn't one, the bill shouldn't pass.

No point to throwing billions of dollars to the insurance industry if we don't get the public option, he said.

"Do you think the people working on this bill actually understand that?" I said. "Maybe I'm being cynical here."

"Yes, they do," he said. "The bill was basically written by the insurance industry. I do think they know [it's a giveaway]." He said it was written by two former insurance industry lobbyists, they knew what they were doing.

But the good news is, he really does believe there's going to be an affordable public option, and all this will be a moot point.

I told him a lot of us were counting on him, and if he told us to support the final bill, I'd feel okay about supporting it.

Here's hoping.

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It seems like everybody at Fox is whining that liberals are just saying No Thanks to their entreaties. Hey, why don't these folks want to subject themselves to routine humiliation at the hands of Fox anchors and producers just so they can be on Teevee? Jeeesh.

Bill O'Reilly -- who likes at other times to dish out lectures on name-calling and civility in our discourse -- named Howard Dean his nightly "Pinhead" on Friday because Dean said this:

Dean: One of the reasons I don't go on Bill O'Reilly's show -- the only reason I don't go on Bill O'Reilly's show -- is because I saw him take apart a 23-year-old who had lost his father in the World Trade Center and tell him he was unpatriotic because he didn't support the war. Those kinds of people I don't hang around. Because they're not good for the country, and they're not good for -- they're not good human beings.

The Loofah Master was outraged at this, of course:

O'Reilly: Well, it's a complete lie. A gross distortion. The guy Dean is referring to blamed the United States for 9/11. It had nothing to do with any war. OK? He blamed the USA for the 9/11 attack, and I did take him apart.

Just for kicks, O'Reilly gets his revenge by sending out Attack Poodle Griff Jenkins to gnaw on Dean's ankle about another quote altogether. This schtick is not aging gracefully.

We've added an excerpt from Robert Greenwald's marvelous documentary, Outfoxed, which features an examination of the Jeremy Glick case.

As you can see, a war was involved: O'Reilly attacked Glick in part for questioning the invasion of Afghanistan.

And Glick didn't "blame the USA for 9/11" -- he signed an ad that accused the United States of committing acts of terrorism itself.

As usual, O'Reilly finds it easier to just lie. Especially because it always makes him look better. And as you can see, he has a long history of doing just that with the Jeremy Glick matter anyway.

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God we need about a hundred more Howard Deans out there to put a stop to the Republican fear mongering. When Newt Gingrich tries to say that getting the waste out of Medicare Advanatage that is a giveaway to the private insurance companies is taking something away from seniors, Dean straightens him out and tells him no, it's taking away from the insurance companies that are ripping us off.

Dean and Durbin both did a good job on Meet the Press today against Gingrich and Cornyn.

MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about the deficit. And the president made a very important pledge during this speech on Wednesday.

(Videotape, Wednesday)

PRES. OBAMA: I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future. Period.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Senator Durbin, a hard pledge to meet when you've got House legislation that already does that, it already breaks the deficit. It can't be paid for over 10 years, according to the CBO. Here's a Washington Post editorial this morning having to do with where are the details, does the math work: "When politicians start talking about paying for programs by cutting `waste and abuse,' you should get nervous. When they don't provide specifics--and when the amounts under discussion are in the hundreds of billions of dollars--you should get even more nervous." How does this get paid for without adding to the deficit?

SEN. DURBIN: Members of Congress should take the president at his word, he will not sign a bill that adds to the deficit. He walked into the White House and inherited a $1 trillion-plus deficit from the Republican administration because they had fought a war in Iraq they didn't pay for, the gave tax breaks to the wealthy they didn't pay for and they had a prescription drug program under Medicare they didn't pay for. This president said that's over, and members of Congress should take that seriously. Now, I disagree with The Washington Post. The fact is, under Medicare now we are providing multibillion-dollar subsidies to health insurance companies for something called Medicare Advantage. The health insurance companies said to us, let us run Medicare. We can show you how the government's not doing it efficiently, we can do it at a lower cost. Guess what, it's not at a lower cost. We are subsidizing private health insurance companies to provide the Medicare benefits that we can provide at a lower cost. That has to change. That subsidy has to end. That is the kind of savings that can come back into the system to help small businesses provide health insurance and help those with lower incomes pay their premiums in America.

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David Gregory asks Dick Durbin if the public option is "buried and gone" and Durbin reiterates that the most important thing is controlling costs and assuring competition. Howard Dean says he agrees with Senator Durbin and they'd drop the public option in a heartbeat if we got some meaningful regulation of the insurance industry. Of course the ones taking all of their money aren't going to want to do either.

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about a key policy provision here, what's gotten so much--taken up so much oxygen in the room in this debate, and that is the public option, the idea of a government plan in these exchanges that would compete with private insurance plan. The president stood behind the idea of competition, keeping the insurance companies honest. But this is what he said about the public plan Wednesday night.

(Videotape, Wednesday)

PRES. OBAMA: The public option is only a means to that end, and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Senator, that was an important statement. Is the public option now buried and gone?

SEN. DURBIN: No, it's not. I support the public option, but I also think the president stated it correctly. What we're looking for is real competition. Understand, the health insurance companies hate this public option, as Dale Bumpers used to say, like the devil hates holy water, Because it means that there's going to be a force in place there that is going to put in competition and keep costs under control. The so-called Lewin Group that's been quoted by many senators on the floor about how this is going to get out of control happens to be an organization that is owned by the United Healthcare Group, a health insurance company. So they've been discredited. The fact is that we understand that putting in a public option means that people will have a choice in markets where there are only a handful of private health insurance companies and people have nowhere to turn...

MR. GREGORY: But, Senator, it can't pass the Senate, can it?

SEN. DURBIN: ...they have to have an affordable choice.

MR. GREGORY: It can't pass the Senate.

SEN. DURBIN: Well, it--I wouldn't go that far. I would say at this point that the House of Representatives includes a clear public option. I don't know what the Senate bill will look like coming out of the Finance and HELP Committee. But we've got to have--at least be true to the principle the president said: Make sure there's competition for these private health insurance companies. These companies do not want the competition, but if we don't have it the prices will not come down.

MR. GREGORY: All right. But, Dr. Dean...

DR. DEAN: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: ...White House officials I've spoken to have been very clear, saying that the left in the Democratic Party has overshot the runway here, overstating the importance of a public option. Did the president put it away?

DR. DEAN: I don't think so at all. I'm, I'm with Dick on this. Look, the president said yesterday that if you can find another way around it to control the insurance companies' costs, that would be fine. There's another way. There's two countries in Europe that have universal health care without--and it's entirely run by insurance companies. But they treat the insurance companies like regulated utilities. If the insurance companies would prefer to be treated like regulated utilities, we'd drop the public option in a heartbeat.

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In a speech to Congress Wednesday, President Barack Obama may come out for a public health care option that would be triggered only if health insurance companies don't provide affordable solution in a predetermined time frame. One Republican Senator, Olympia Snowe, has expressed support for this idea. Gov. Howard Dean told Fox News' Chris Wallace that it was a mistake to craft a bill just to get a single Republican vote Sunday.

"The problem is it won't work. It doesn't add anything. If you're going to do that, just do the insurance reform," said Dean. "There's no point in spending $600 billion and giving it to the insurance industry. We know what they'll do with it. I'm hopeful he'll stick to his guns and we'll have the reform we were promised in the campaign."

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The resignation of Van Jones was a "loss for the country," according to Gov. Howard Dean. "I think he was brought down," Dean told Fox News' Chris Wallace.

John Amato:

Howard Dean said he spoke to Van Jones and said...

Well, he was told by the people waving clip boards around that he was signing something else and I think that's too bad.

Digby writes:

I would hope that these leftist extremists like Color of Change will think twice before they go after an upstanding company like FOX News because the lesson here is that somebody is going to pay a big price for doing it. In fact, it probably would pay to keep a close eye on the FOX gasbags from now on to get an idea of which groups or individuals have offended the network and get rid of them before anyone has a chance to make a public stink. It would save everyone a lot of time and trouble.

We have members in the Republican party like the Michelle Bachmann's that say and do insane things all day long, but they just get a pat on the back from the media and say thank you, may I have another.
The Washington Post actually let a little truth slip into their article about the FOX witch hunt.

But there's more to this story than just the usual Lani Guanier human sacrifice ritual:

Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck all but declared war on Jones after a group the adviser founded in 2005, ColorofChange.org, led an advertising boycott against Beck's show to protest his claim that Obama is a racist.

This is yet another example of Fox News annihilation strategy against anyone who criticizes them. And it works.

It's kind of ironic that they constantly accuse Obama of being a "Chicago" politician when it Roger Ailes who adheres to the classic dictum from The Untouchables:

Malone: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!

Murdoch and Ailes have made it quite clear that if you mess with Fox they will unleash the crazies. They're taking Van Jones' scalp to send that message. He won't be the last. It's not a coincidence that the Washington Post put this surprisingly insightful paragraph far down in the story. In fact, I'm a bit surprised they let it slip through at all.

Anything You Can Do from Annie, Get Your Gun (1950)

It's the closest approximation of the Sunday shows I can think of right now: Annie Oakley and Frank Butler trying to one-up each other, screaming face to face and fighting about nothing of substance. Although I can't complain this week that the Democrats are non-existent or out-numbered (and hooray! the Obama administration has figured out they need to be out there too), my feeling is that the discussion will not be any more substantive than Annie and Frank's. WH Spokesperson Robert Gibbs will be on This Week, Senior Adviser David Axelrod will be on Meet the Press and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be on Face the Nation, presumably to discuss the latest GOP hissy fit du jour of Obama's planned speech to students. But we'll also get lots of health care jabs as well, with Dr. Thomas Frieden of CDC on State of the Union and Howard Dean and Newt Gingrich on Fox News Sunday.

ABC's "This Week" - White House press secretary Robert Gibbs; former Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Bob Dole, R-Kan.; Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - David Axelrod, White House senior adviser; Rudy Giuliani, former New York City mayor; Harold Ford Jr., Democratic Leadership Council chairman.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Eugene Robinson, Katty Kay, Gloria Borger and Michael Duffy. Topics: How does President Obama need to reset the health care debate? Should Ted Kennedy have shown more public penance for Chappaquiddick? Meter Questions: Will outspoken fringe players dominate GOP for the rest of Obama's term? YES: 9 NO: 3;
If unemployment is still high next year, will Obama revise his tax proposals? YES: 11 No: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.; Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Some of our greatest hits: First, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the limits of American power. Then former New York State governor Elliot Spitzer's unique perspective on the financial crisis and the Dalai Lama's perspective on the world.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Howard Dean, former national Democratic Party chairman; John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

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Wow. Imagine that. Someone on Fox News attacking a child, a funeral, Howard Dean, and universal health care in one fell swoop. Bravo Laura.

Transcript:

INGRAHAM: But tell me why you think it's okay for people to be up there on Capitol Hill saying do it for Teddy? Why is that okay?

SKINNER: Well, I'll tell you why. You said are they using this -- Ted Kennedy's death? Ted Kennedy himself called it, health care, the cause of his life. Okay. So it's not using it, Laura.

And here's what really bothered me during this debate over the weekend on the radio. And we were all talking about it is that you had these moving eulogies by Orrin Hatch at obviously the services, but McCain, and Mitch McConnell saying, and even FOX News, the coverage said lion of -- liberal lion crossed party lines. Everybody said how wonderful and how he crossed party lines.

Now that he's gone, they can't see how health care can get passed because he's not there to do it. That's like using him as an excuse to bury health care reform along with him. You're eulogizing him and saying he went to your mother's funeral.

INGRAHAM: Well.

SKINNER: You loved him, but you can't do what it is he's done his whole career.

INGRAHAM: Right.

SKINNER: .not a single one of his dear friends can do what he's done.

INGRAHAM: But that's - right. That's not quite accurate though because over the last several months clearly, the Democrats haven't been saying let's do it for Teddy. Let's do it for Senator Kennedy. He's struggling for his life. And let's fight for it. I didn't hear that a lot over the last several months.

So only after his death, and after the polls show that the public basically doesn't want this whole Obama care thing, do they think okay, the whole rebranding, the first two times around hasn't worked. So now we're going to try this. And let me just play -- we have a sound bite of one of the prayers at the mass on Saturday. This is the funeral mass. And this was one of the Kennedy grand kids during the prayers. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For what my grandpa called the cause of his life, as he said so often, in every part of this land that every American will have decent quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. We pray to the Lord.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Nancy do you think that that adorable little boy came up with that on his own? It mean, it sounds like it's right out of Howard Dean's speech or something. Come on, this was politicizing the funeral.

SKINNER: But you know what? I've been -- I was there, Laura, at the convention when Ted Kennedy actually gave his last speech. And he was bed- ridden before he even gave that speech. So I'm telling you, he said this is the cause of my life. Everybody - 1960s.

INGRAHAM: Who cares?

SKINNER: .I've been working on this.

INGRAHAM: Nancy, who cares? Who cares that it's the cause of his life? It's a sixth of our economy.

SKINNER: It's not just.

INGRAHAM: It's not a tribute to one man. This is our future.

SKINNER: Right.

INGRAHAM: This is our liberty and our freedom at stake.

SKINNER: That's why he worked on it.

INGRAHAM: It's not about Ted Kennedy.

SKINNER: What the calls are for, Laura, is for bipartisanship. If he crossed the line -- for Nixon, he got Nixon's cancer institute passed. And Nixon didn't want his name on.

INGRAHAM: Right, we're going back to Nixon for the bipartisanship.

SKINNER: He's done no child left behind. He's done lots of things. It's not about ted Kennedy. This is the thing. If we're going to look at a compromise on health care, which that's what everybody is talking about now. The far left wants single pair universal. That's gone. The far right wants the status quo. Well, these people are saying.

INGRAHAM: Far right?

SKINNER: (INAUDIBLE) for the American people.

INGRAHAM: Yeah. How about 55 percent of the country? Far right? I mean, I don't think that's necessarily working now when you look at these polls. It's broad based opposition. But Nancy, we appreciate it very much.

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(h/t Heather.)

I, for one, am thrilled that Dr. Dean is outside the White House, agitating for real healthcare reform. He's much more effective out here than on the inside, being back-stabbed by Rahm:

Howard Dean has emerged as President Barack Obama’s chief antagonist from the left on healthcare reform, raising questions over whether Obama made a mistake by snubbing Dean for a position in his administration.

Dean’s strong advocacy for creating a broad government-run health insurance program, known as the public option, has become a headache for Obama while at the same time giving liberals a powerful spokesman with national credibility.

Dean, who once declared himself a representative of the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” has been traveling the nation this summer offering his own views on Obama’s healthcare proposal. His uncompromising stance is reminiscent of his 2004 presidential campaign that took many Democrats by surprise, and has begun to symbolize a rift between the president and those activists who played a major role in electing him.

Oh, yeah. Yoo hoo, over here! Remember us?

“Howard Dean has been the bully pulpit for the grass roots, expressing what the majority of Americans across the country are feeling but using his profile to make it newsworthy,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), a liberal activist group that supports the public option.

“It might have been a blessing in disguise that Howard Dean was not brought into the admin because it has allowed him to be bully pulpit for the overwhelming majority of American people who support the public option.”

Soon after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a television interview that the public option is “not the essential element” of healthcare reform, Dean took a strong opposing stance.

“You can't really do health reform without it," Dean said of the public option in a television interview Monday, calling a major government role “the entirety of healthcare reform.” His comment spearheaded a week of liberal criticism of the administration’s mixed messages on healthcare reform. (Obama insisted on Thursday that his position on the public option has not changed and described it as “a good idea” but “not the only aspect.”)

His potential to torpedo the administration’s signature domestic proposal is somewhat ironic given Obama’s efforts to enlist potential adversaries in his administration rather than face their wrath.

Dean was once considered a candidate for secretary of Health and Human Services. Obama passed him over while appointing former rivals and potential adversaries to Cabinet posts. He named his primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State and asked Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a longtime critic of Democratic fiscal policy, to serve as secretary of Commerce.

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As someone recently said, what planet do they live on? Chuck Grassley and Ken Conrad fall all over themselves praising their co-op proposal, while Howard Dean, the Last Semi-Honest Man, calls it out as the political theater it is.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired of these expedient political solutions to real-life problems. After reading Matt Taibbi's latest Rolling Stone piece on health care reform (no link yet), I now understand just how thoroughly the Blue Dogs screwed us on the public option and I would cry no tears if it disappeared in its present form:

(CBS) Former Vermont Governor and doctor, Howard Dean said the health care co-operative proposal is purely for political strategy and has not worked in the past on "Face the Nation" Sunday.

"That proposal is a political compromise, not a policy compromise," Dean said. "No one knows what it would look like and when it has been tried in the past it mostly hasn’t worked."

Dean, a strong advocate for the public insurance option, said people need the choice of a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. He argued that because private insurance companies are investor-owned, they are spending less money on health services and more on equity.

Medicare, Dean said, "is by nature much more efficient" because currently seniors can move, leave their job and get sick without having their coverage discontinued.

"Everybody over 65 has it and the question is 'Why don't we open up that program,'" he said.

[...] Dean said "we are getting pretty mixed signals from Senator Grassley. … I think the Republicans owe it to this country to give us a clearer sense of what they will and will not support."

Senators Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, appeared earlier on "Face the Nation," saying that the public option plan would not find enough support in the Senate. The co-op solution, they said, would be the only hope for a bipartisan agreement.

Dean also said the $600 billion dollar House price tag on health care is "reasonable" because it is less than we are spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Don't ever ask Barney Frank a question if you don't want to know exactly how he feels about something. From Larry King Live, Frank is asked by a woman waving an Obama as Hitler picture at a town hall meeting why he is supporting his "Nazi policy" on health care. Frank didn't mince any words in responding.

Frank: When you ask me that question I'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question. On what planet do you spend most of your time?

[....]

You want me to answer the question? Yes. As you stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.

Larry asks Howard Dean what he thinks about what he just watched. As Dean points out, this has nothing to do with health care reform and "this kind of anger politics has been going on for thirty years".

h/t PoliticsNewsPolitics

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Howard Dean on MSNBC's Morning Meeting on whether there should be a public option in the health care reform bill.

Dean: The public option is really the only way to inject the kinds of things that the President wants and I think the Secretary was wrong when she said it's not essential. It is essential. You don't have reform without the public option. I guess I'd even disagree with the President. To say it's a sliver of the bill, it's true, technically it's a sliver of the bill. There's a lot of other stuff in the bill, but without a public option you're pumping $60 billion a year into the private health insurance industry, and I think that's an enormous mistake and hardly qualifies as reform......

I don't think the President can sign a bill which puts $60 billion dollars of tax payers' money into the private health industry, and that's what this bill would be without the public option, so I hope that he wouldn't sign that bill. I don't think he'll get a bill like that because I don't think the House will pass one.....

....My advocacy would be for this. If you're not going to have a public option, then don't call it health reform. Strip all the money out of the bill and just do something we did here in Vermont about fifteen years ago, guaranteed issue and community rating. Require insurance companies to insure everybody. Stop them from kicking people off and don't let them charge huge amounts of money for sicker patients.

That's not health reform. It's insurance reform. You won't do much for the uninsured but you will make the health insurance market work better for the people it does work for. And you know, that's an incremental step and I wouldn't want to throw that out, but I'd strip the money out of the bill because this is going to be and expensive bill and if you're not going to get reform then you shouldn't bother with the expense.

Amen Howard.