MoDo agrees when Gibbs punches hippies, but he should go for being snotty to the press

healthcare in Columbia and their upcoming election

article about company costs and personal mandates

An article explaining why Vermont’s and CA’s efforts for single payer aren’t going anywhere.

Who could have predicted? Now that the mandate to purchase private health insurance is the law of the land, America’s health insurers have decided it’s okay to reveal, well, uh, they really liked the bill’s basic structure all along.

I learned how to make a chart in html today. Also, stuff about Al-Qaeda as compared to health insurers.

Ahhh, the power of the Democrats! To all of you who said that Dems couldn’t get anything done, to all of you that said Congressional Democrats couldn’t find the President’s desk with a map, a flashlight, and guided tour from Desirée Rogers, to all of you that said this White House did not know how to play political hardball, I say: Behold!

Just look what has happened in the last fortnight (or so): the president actually put his health plan on paper, the Senate leadership and the White House decided that budget reconciliation wasn’t such a bad idea after all, Democrats in both houses of Congress came together on a sidecar strategy, leadership has started whipping votes like there’s no tomorrow, President Obama has taken his show on the road in campaign-style events to sell his reform plan, and he, the president himself, is having one-on-one meetings with Democratic members (yes, that’s Democratic, not Republican) of the House to arm twist and horse trade. And, the great grassroots organizing forces of the left—from OFA to SEIU, from DFA to HCAN, from MoveOn to what the serious folks call “the liberal blogosphere” (not the marginal blogs, of course [smile])—have been mobilized in an all-out, no-holds-barred, damn-near scorched earth effort to move every last member of the House off the dime and on board the health care highway.

Hell, the White House is giving away NASA bases, and the SEIU is threatening primary challenges to anyone that votes against the “Senate-plus” health care overhaul—even if that means running kamikaze, third-party candidates. All to counteract the horrible, obstructionist, downright evil efforts of notorious Public Enemy Number One. . .

Last night on the PBS Newshour, AHIP – the insurance industry’s main lobby group – debated for the first time someone who’s for health care reform, in this case, Health Care for America Now’s National Campaign Director Richard Kirsch.

The White House and AHIP have a deal on health reform. I can’t see item on which the parties disagree. And if you look at what AHIP is saying in its protest adds, the basic message is: the deal is still on, and we want this bill to pass. Just stop blaming us.

Tomorrow, it’s time to arrest the insurance companies.

Thousands of people will descend on the insurance companies, who are having a conference in DC and plotting how to kill health reform at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on 22nd Street. We’re going to shut down their conference and stop them and business as usual, and we’ll do whatever it takes to succeed.