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David Gergen apparently thinks that 30% the insurance companies are taking to move our money around is just a "secondary issue" when it comes to what's in the bill making its way through the Senate right now. He then goes on to say it's not real reform and talks about how expensive Romney-care is in Massachusetts. I don't know how anyone could square those two statements. I don't think it's any big mystery why the public option is needed. To keep costs down. I'll refer back to Howard Dean on this one:

Dean: 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.

Gergen thinks we should give the money to the insurance companies, and then come back and try to fix it later. Bad idea.

Transcript below the fold.

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It doesn't happen often, but when the sports world collides with politics, it's worth noting -- especially when it's an athlete who was a staunch support of both George Bush and John McCain, eying Ted Kennedy's vacant Senate seat:

BOSTON -- Curt Schilling, the former major league pitcher who won the allegiance of Bostonians by leading the Red Sox to the 2004 World Series, said Wednesday that he has "some interest" in running for the seat held for nearly 50 years by Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Schilling, a registered independent and longtime Republican supporter, wrote on his blog that while his family and video game company, 38 Studios, are high priorities, "I do have some interest in the possibility."

The 42-year-old lives in suburban Medfield and campaigned for President George W. Bush in 2004 and Sen. John McCain in 2008. Read on...

This is probably the most important new today for the future of healthcare reform, and I'm glad to say it looks like Gov. Patrick will be making a quick appointment.

And hell no, I don't care that the Massachusetts Democrats are being "hypocrites." Puh-LEEZE. This is coming from the same Republican party that dragged us down to our current state of woe? Play me a song on that tiny violin, wontcha, fellas?

BOSTON — The push for swiftly naming an interim successor to Senator Edward M. Kennedy intensified Wednesday in the wake of his death, with Gov. Deval Patrick coming out strongly in favor of the idea and other top state lawmakers indicating they were reluctant to leave the seat vacant for months.

Mr. Kennedy, concerned about the loss of a Democratic vote during the fevered effort to pass a national health care overhaul — his most cherished legislative goal — had asked state leaders in a letter last week to make such a change possible.

Wednesday, Democrats in Washington stepped up pressure on the governor to see Mr. Kennedy’s wish fulfilled, and state legislative leaders said they would immerse themselves in the issue after a mourning period for Mr. Kennedy.

Under current law, a special election could not take place until at least 145 days after a Senate seat opens, in this case, mid-January. Mr. Kennedy’s proposal would let Mr. Patrick, a Democrat, appoint a temporary replacement sooner.

The governor said he would sign a change in the law if the legislature approved it. He said it was important for Massachusetts to have two voices in the Senate as Congress prepares to vote on overhauling the health care system — contentious legislation whose passage may well require every Democratic vote.

“It’s a particularly timely request at a time when there are such profoundly important issues pending in the Congress,” Mr. Patrick told reporters outside the State House, adding that he had spoken with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, earlier in the day about the importance of filling Mr. Kennedy’s seat. “I’m looking at the issues that are in front of the country right now and how important they are to all of us.”

Republicans have attacked Mr. Kennedy’s proposal as flagrantly partisan, and indeed, the state’s Democrats are in the awkward position of being asked to reverse their own 2004 vote to keep vacant Senate seats empty until a special election.

Sure, we usually reserve the 50 State Strategy for up-and-comers, but even umpteen albums into a twenty year career, Boston's Juliana Hatfield always sounds like she's got a score to settle and a lot to prove. I can think of few artists who hit such creative strides after their peaks in popularity, and none at all who have managed to make that a compelling thing to sing about. There are only a handful of great albums that came out this decade by 90's alternative rock denizens, and she's made at least four of them.

2008's Crushing Love (from which this track was taken) is a kiss-and-make-up after 2005's angry, introspective and spontaneous blast of frustration Made in China, a pattern Hatfield usually exhibits in some way or another album to album. I'm looking forward to the next outburst and calm to follow.

Also, Richard Butler from the Psychedelic Furs chimes in with instantly recognizable backgrounds on this one.

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(FDR - answering the well-upholstered whiners)

During the last few days of the 1936 Presidential campaign, FDR spoke at a rally in Wooster Massachusetts on October 21, 1936, answering Republican charges he mishandled the recovery that pulled the country out of depression. It was a familiar complaint:

FDR:

“Three and a half years ago we declared war on the Depression. And you and I know today that war is being won. But now comes that familiar figure, the well-upholstered hindsight critic. He tells us that out strategy was wrong, that the cost was too great, that something else won the war. That is an argument as old as the remorse of those who had their chance and muffed it.”

You'd think, 73 years later there would be a different story. But no.

I guess the upholstery just doesn't change.

This is pretty big news, guys. Remember, the Massachusetts plan is the model they want to use for national reform - and already it's beginning to crack under the economic strain.

This is what happens with "bipartisan," market-friendly compromise: Band-aid solutions that can't handle a massive load. And it's exactly why we need single-payer universal healthcare: because it's the only plan cheap enough to stay solvent through tough times.

Overseers of Massachusetts’ trailblazing healthcare program made their first cuts yesterday, trimming $115 million, or 12 percent, from Commonwealth Care, which subsidizes premiums for needy residents and is the centerpiece of the 2006 law.

The board of the Connector Authority made the cuts as officials confronted two side effects of the recession: the state budget crisis and a surge in enrollment by the recently unemployed.

The largest share of the savings will come from slowing enrollment. An estimated 18,000 poor residents who qualify for full subsidies, but who forget to designate a health plan, will no longer be automatically assigned a plan and enrolled and thus could face delays in getting care.

The board also eliminated dental coverage for the poorest residents enrolled in Commonwealth Care, roughly 92,000 people who currently are the only ones in the program who receive that care. Regulators said that would save $10 million. Dental coverage was retained in the budget approved by lawmakers last week, and now it falls to the governor to decide its fate.

Also hanging in the balance is the health insurance status of 28,000 legal immigrants whose Commonwealth Care coverage was dropped in the budget lawmakers approved for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Governor Deval Patrick has until Monday to decide whether to veto any of that budget, which set aside $116 million less for Commonwealth Care than he proposed.