An insurance exchange is not a mechanism for enlightened choice among benefits. It is a mechanism for subdividing and horse-trading a human right.

Brilliantly said.

Love the picture, love the sensibility. America citizenry tortured by another political/corporate shell game.

Well said and all true but health care in Canada grew out of the Provinces, it was not a national switch that was flipped on. I’m encouraged by Jane’s Whip Count which would make certain we wouldn’t get a boondoggle destined to fail and how Change Congress is targeting the key Democrats hiding in the pants of the Insurers.

Health Care isn’t an unexpected event you cover it’s an inevitability you prepare to handle.

Thanks. Yes, Canada’s transition was province by province, although other, albeit smaller, nations made the transition in one fell swoop. This is one reason why Sanders’s S. 898 five-state single payer demonstration bill deserves support regardless of whatever principal reform legislation makes it through.

Nobody’s claiming a single-payer transition will be easy or instant or nondisruptive to many good people who through (usually) no fault of their own make their living from this obsolete business sector. But unless we’re honest about the need for that trajectory, the new public option bureaucracies are going to make it harder, not easier, to make that transition. Even a “robust” public option, adhering to the Progressive Caucus talk points, will likely be formulated to keep private insurers competitive and in the game.

Thanks much!

The real controversy of Obamacare is not the public plan, it’s the private-insurance reprieve.

if obamacare comes with a mandate, it will be more than a reprieve, it will be an insurance industry bailout.

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great post, awesome picture! and too many great lines for me to pick a favorite.