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As Jed noted "What would a health care debate be without some good ol' fashioned race-baiting from the G.O.P.?" Stay classy Alexander. So let me get this straight...the Democrats want to steal from grandma to give to the "ghetto"...or did I miss something here?

Alexander: Every other word we hear coming from the other side is that this vote tonight is historic. And I agree it’s historic, but I think my view of why it’s historic is a little different than their view. And I wonder if my colleagues would not agree with me that this bill is historic in its arrogance—in its arrogance that we in Congress are wise enough to take this entire complex health care system that serves 300 million Americans, that is 16% of our economy, and write a, and think that we could write a 2000 page bill and be wise enough to change it all—all at once.

Or arrogant in the, in its dumping of 15 million low income Americans into a Medical Ghetto called Medicaid that none of us, or any of our families would ever want to be a part of for our health care.

Or arrogant in then sending to the states, who are going broke a big chunk of the bill for what we’ve just done. Or arrogant enough to tell Americans that the bill cost $849 billion and think we’re not smart enough to read the print and figure out that it’s actually $2.5 trillion when it actually is implemented. Or to tell us that paying for reimbursement for physicians is not an important part of a health care bill, and so they run over here in the dead of night—run up the deficit another quarter of a trillion dollars.

I can make a long list of reasons this bill is arrogant—arrogant enough to cut and tax grandma’s Medicare that’s going broke according to the trustees in 2015-2017 and then spend it on somebody else other than grandma.

I mean the bill is arrogant in its telling us that it’s going to reduce premiums for most Americans when in fact it increases premiums for most Americans. So people say “Where is the Republican health care bill?’ and my answer to that Mr. President is don’t expect Sen. McConnell to come rollin’ in here with a wheelbarrow with a 2000 page budget busting, debt ridden, arrogant piece of legislation because that’s not what we believe in.

What we need to do as a Congress is re-earn the trust of the American people by setting a clear goal of reducing health care costs, showing some humility and start moving step by step in that direction and I hope during this hour that we have a chance to talk about the specifics steps to reduce health care costs that we Republicans have offered day after day after day to no avail.

These are Democrats, mind you. And the thing is, I don't even believe most of these amoral jerks give a damn about abortion. They're just playing to their audience, and it provides protective cover for their real agenda: Stop the public option at any cost.

And of course this means that women on Medicaid who already have abortion coverage would lose it. Our women's-rights president's bold stand?

"‘Look, try to get this thing worked out among the Democrats. We want you to work it out within the party,’ ” Mr. Stupak said, adding that Mr. Obama did not say whether he supported the segregated-money provision or a more sweeping restriction. “We got his attention, which we never had before.”

Isn't that nice. In a country founded on religious freedom, apparently some religions are much more equal than others:

WASHINGTON — As if it were not complicated enough, the debate over health care in Congress is becoming a battlefield in the fight over abortion.

Abortion opponents in both the House and the Senate are seeking to block the millions of middle- and lower-income people who might receive federal insurance subsidies to help them buy health coverage from using the money on plans that cover abortion. And the abortion opponents are getting enough support from moderate Democrats that both sides say the outcome is too close to call. Opponents of abortion cite as precedent a 30-year-old ban on the use of taxpayer money to pay for elective abortions.

Yes, God forbid that an unemployed couple who are struggling to get on their financial feet have abortion as an option. It makes a lot more sense to send them (and their offspring) further down the financial hole, don't you think?

Abortion-rights supporters say such a restriction would all but eliminate from the marketplace private plans that cover the procedure, pushing women who have such coverage to give it up. Nearly half of those with employer-sponsored health plans now have policies that cover abortion, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The question looms as a test of President Obama’s campaign pledge to support abortion rights but seek middle ground with those who do not. Mr. Obama has promised for months that the health care overhaul would not provide federal money to pay for elective abortions, but White House officials have declined to spell out what he means.

Democratic Congressional leaders say the latest House and Senate health care bills preserve the spirit of the current ban on federal abortion financing by requiring insurers to segregate their public subsidies into separate accounts from individual premiums and co-payments. Insurers could use money only from private sources to pay for abortions.

But opponents say that is not good enough, because only a line on an insurers’ accounting ledger would divide the federal money from the payments for abortions. The subsidies would still help people afford health coverage that included abortion.

You know what I see as the real issue? When we give high-quality, subsidized insurance to allegedly "pro-life" politicians, why, that means they have that much more cash to spend on their girlfriends' abortions (not to mention hookers of either gender), and that can't be allowed to stand.

The solution is obvious. Just to make sure we're not subsidizing immoral behavior, we need to stop paying for their health insurance. In fact, maybe we should cut their salaries so they're not led into temptation.

Since the Senate is the group turning the health care debate into "either-or" - as in, "either" regular citizens get screwed "or" the health-for-profit industry gets screwed, I thought I'd point this out as a perfect example of how they think:

The Finance Committee seemed to come very close to passing an amendment Tuesday that would have violated the White House deal with the pharmaceutical industry.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) proposed ending what some Democrats have called a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry – and he picked up strong support from his party.

But two sources familiar with the process say it is still likely to fall short when the committee votes Wednesday.

As part of the 2003 Medicare prescription drug program, more than 6 million low-income seniors were shifted from Medicaid, which allowed the government to negotiate a deep discount for drugs, to the Medicare program, which did not. This has resulted in the government paying about 30 percent more for drugs, according to an analysis by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Fla.).

Nelson’s amendment would shift these beneficiaries back to the Medicaid program, resulting in $86 billion in savings that could be used to close the donut hole for senior citizens.

Senators were drawn into a tense discussion over the merits of the White House’s $80 billion deal with the pharmaceutical industry, and the failings, as some Democrats see it, of the Medicare prescription drug program.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said the Finance Committee should honor the deal with the drug industry. To suddenly double their obligation from $80 billion to more than $160 billion would not be “fair,” he said.

Now, think about that. Senior citizens are not getting needed medication because it's too expensive, but it's more important to continue giving pharmaceutical companies this windfall because they're counting on it and it wouldn't be "fair" to take it away from them.

Just so we're clear.

So Senate Democrats on the Finance Committee offered an amendment that would enable the federal government to bargain for lower drug prices for their bulk purchasing, a direct assault on the White House/Big Pharma deal from a few months back. Basically it would shift poor seniors back onto Medicaid for their drug purchasing, where the government can negotiate discounts. This would save the government over $80 billion dollars.

And Tom Carper of Delaware defended the secret deal in the most amazing of ways:

I was not involved in negotiations with PhRMA but I believe that the administration was, obviously PhRMA was, and I presume this committee was involved in some way in those negotiations.

And what PhRMA agreed to do through those negotiations is to pay about
80 billion dollars over 10 years to help fill up half the donut hole. That's my understanding. And they are prepared to go forward and to honor that commitment. As I understand it, the commitment from our colleague Senator Nelson would basically double what was negotiated with PhRMA.

And whether you like PhRMA or not -- remember I talked earlier today in our opening statements, I talked about four core values, and one of those is the golden rule, treat other people the way I want to be treated?

I'll tell you -- if someone negotiated a deal with me and I agreed to put up say, 80 dollars or 80 million dollars or 80 billion dollars and then you came back and said to me a couple of weeks later -- no no, I know you agreed to do 80 billion and I know you were willing to help support through an advertising campaign this particular -- not even this particular bill, just the idea of generic health care reform? No, we're going to double -- we're going to double what you agreed in those negotiations to do. That's not the way -- that's not what I consider treating people the way I'd want to be treated.

That just doesn't seem right to me.

This is incredible. The deal is transparently one to protect drug industry profits. There's just no doubt about this. Carper is saying that it's more important to get a few generic ads in support of health care reform than to save the US taxpayers $80 billion dollars. Backroom deals must be honored even if they hurt people. That's the "golden rule" in Washington.

Did Carper not know that cameras were rolling when he said this?

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Ruh-roh. John Boehner had better watch it or the Tea Baggers are going to be angry with him. He must think that no one has him either transcribed or recorded for the last year. Think Progress cites one example.

Boehner is lying. He has said that what Obama and Democratic leaders are doing is socialism. From his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference a few months ago:

Well, the stimulus, the omnibus, the budget — it’s all one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment. … All of these bills seek to replace our economic freedom with the whims and mandates of politicians and bureaucrats.

GREGORY:This question about the role of the government, and, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying this week what she worries about in terms of the tone of debate is that it could lead to violence, as it did in the ‘70s; you know, there was anti-government violence in the ‘90s in Oklahoma City, as well. How much of a concern is that? Do you share it, or do you think that that was an overstatement on her part?

GRAHAM: Well, quite frankly, I mean, the whole idea of the role of government needs to be debated. The public option; she says there will be no bill coming out of the House without a public option. America is saying, listen, the government programs we’ve got like Medicare is $34 trillion underfunded. The Baucus bill will let—adds 11 million to a Medicaid system that can’t—the states can’t afford. So a lot of us are concerned that Nancy Pelosi and others are pushing government to control prices when it will not work in health care. Competition and choice. If you’ve got only one plan in Alabama, let the people in Alabama shop around the country for plans. But I’m not so worried about—you know, her criticism about the opponents of the plan don’t bother me. The fact that we’re broke...

GREGORY: She’s talking about violence, though.

GRAHAM: Yeah. I don’t...

GREGORY: I mean, we’ll get to the health care. You don’t buy that.

GRAHAM: I don’t think any responsible person is asking for a violent response.

GREGORY: Do you—is that hyperbole?

BOEHNER: David, I’m, I’m not concerned about violence.

GRAHAM: No.

BOEHNER: I mean, I’m sure Speaker Pelosi was sincere in her concern. But let’s remember something. The debate that we’re in here is not just about health care, it’s about the, the trillion-dollar stimulus that was suppose to be about jobs and turned into nothing more spending—than spending and more spending. It was about a budget with a, with a nearly $2 trillion deficit this year and trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see. It’s a cap and trade system, this big giant tax on the American people that this week, we just find out, the Treasury Department said will cost the average family $1700 per year. You add to that this whole question of health care and the government option, the government involvement, and Americans today are getting more news about what’s happening in their government than they have ever gotten before, and Americans are genuinely scared to death. Scared to death...

GREGORY: But, Leader, don’t they get even more scared when you got the head of the Republican Party sending out an e-mail that, you know, to challenge the president and Democratic leaders for a socialist power grab? I mean, is that appropriate conversation? Is this, did you really think the president’s a socialist?

BOEHNER: Listen, when you begin to look at how much they want to grow government, you can call it whatever you want, but the fact is, is that...

GREGORY: Well, what do you call it, though? This is important.

BOEHNER: This is unsustainable. We’re, we’re broke.

GREGORY: That’s fine. Do you think the president’s a socialist? Because that’s what...

BOEHNER: No.

GREGORY: OK. But the head of the Republican Party is, is calling him that.

BOEHNER: Well, listen, I didn’t call him that and I’m not going to call him that. What’s going on here is unsustainable. Our nation is broke. And, and at a time when we’ve got this serious economic problem, a near 10 percent unemployment, we ought to be looking to create jobs in America, not kill jobs in America. Their cap and trade proposal, all this spending, all of this debt and now their healthcare plan will make it more difficult for employers to hire people, more difficult and more expensive to have employees, which means we’re going to have less jobs in America. But Americans are scared. That’s why they’re speaking up and that’s why they’re engaging in their government.

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Rep. Lynn Woolsey, chair of the largest caucus in Congress -- the Congressional Progressive Caucus -- refuted Fox's daylong talking point, that President Obama somehow took the public option off the table in his speech last night health-care reform, earlier today on Fox with Jon Scott:

Woolsey: I applauded, because ... public option is on the table. There's no question about it.

Scott: It's on the table, but it didn't seem to have his -- you know, it wasn't his ... He didn't say it's got to be there.

Woolsey: Well, he knows that 84 members of the Progressive Caucus, and many, many members besides ourselves are absolutely intent on the public option being part of the House health-care reform bill.

Scott: What's your chief argument for why you think it's got to be there?

Woolsey: Because it's the best way to cut costs and bring competition into the program, and actually to bring security for those who are already covered by health care, and might lose their jobs or want to change jobs, and want to have a choice. And one of those choices could be the public option.

Scott: You don't think that the free market would be the more efficient way to deliver that?

Woolsey: Well, has it been? Fifty years, private health-care insurance companies have not been able to do the job. Why would we think they could do it now?

Scott: What about Medicare and Medicaid? Are they examples of well-run, you know, government programs for dispensing medical care?

Woolsey: They're very popular programs, sir, as is the Veterans Administration and the military health care. Those are government programs that run well, they run at an overhead of less than 5 to 7 percent, versus 30 percent for the private health care insurance companies.

Funny that Scott should bring up precisely the programs that prove that "government run health care" can be a good thing. Woolsey hit that meaty pitch right out of the park.

Hopefully, she's right about the public option, too.

Tell us your thoughts.

Here's some transcripts:

Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan: First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have. What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime.

We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies – because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives. That’s what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan – more security and stability.

Now, if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange – a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It’s how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it’s time to give every American the same opportunity that we’ve given ourselves.

Ever notice the deficits are only a problem when Democrats spend to help the rest of us?

Krugman explains why the deficit isn't the huge problem Republicans always say it is (but only when there's a Democratic president, of course):

So is there anything to worry about? Yes, but the dangers are political, not economic.

As I’ve said, those 10-year projections aren’t as bad as you may have heard. Over the really long term, however, the U.S. government will have big problems unless it makes some major changes. In particular, it has to rein in the growth of Medicare and Medicaid spending.

That shouldn’t be hard in the context of overall health care reform. After all, America spends far more on health care than other advanced countries, without better results, so we should be able to make our system more cost-efficient.

But that won’t happen, of course, if even the most modest attempts to improve the system are successfully demagogued — by conservatives! — as efforts to “pull the plug on grandma.”

So don’t fret about this year’s deficit; we actually need to run up federal debt right now and need to keep doing it until the economy is on a solid path to recovery. And the extra debt should be manageable. If we face a potential problem, it’s not because the economy can’t handle the extra debt. Instead, it’s the politics, stupid.

Today I had an appointment with the surgeon who I expected to do the surgery on my ankle. I presented him with the second opinion from one of his colleagues, and he agreed with it.

"Yes, you really do need this surgery," he said. "But you need someone who can do an arthroscopic exam for bone fragments and a ligament reconstruction at the same time, and I can't do that. There's only a handful of people
who do."

Is there any reason why I couldn’t have those surgeries separately? I asked.

Well, no, he said. But it really didn’t make sense to separate them and the insurance company would probably dispute it. The thing is, he knows the other orthopedic group with whom I have the appointment - one of the best in the city, he hastened to add - and he knows they have a lot of restrictions about what insurance they’ll take. He said they probably wouldn’t accept the open car insurance claim in payment.

At this point, I was almost in tears. “What are my options?” I said.

There’s this one guy over at Jefferson who does both, and he might take the insurance, he said. “And there’s another guy up in Princeton, but that’s it as far as I know.” (And by way of passing, told me he had a patient that week from 100 miles away who drove to his office with a badly broken arm because he couldn't get anyone closer to accept his Medicaid.)

So I came home and called the doctor at Jefferson. The office assistant informed me they’re no longing accepting New Jersey car insurance cases. “No, no, my health insurance is Jersey. My car insurance is Pennsylvania,” I said, desperate to get a break.

Finally, I got one. The office assistant took all my information and said she had to verify my coverage and the open claim. I told her I was on COBRA, running out of money and really needed to get this surgery done ASAP.

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Perhaps Sarah Palin made that ridiculous statement about "Obama Death Panels" because she knew this story was going to break -- it was happening in her own state, right under her nose:

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements. No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In the meantime, frail and vulnerable Alaskans who desperately need the help are struggling. One elderly woman is stuck in a nursing home, for lack of care at home. Another woman, suffering from chronic pain and fatigue, said she's so weak, she often can't even pop dinner into the microwave.

This is the GOP's alternative to a public or universal option. Sarah wants to talk about evil socialist plans that will kill people, but I betcha she doesn't want to talk about the hundreds of Alaskans who died waiting for these services.

A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help. Read on...

In honor of the people of Alaska who died on her watch, Sarah Palin needs to stop makin' stuff up about health care reform, and apologize for screwing things up and then running away when the going got tough.

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It could have been "The Clash of the Titans," but Howard Dean was, as usual, a class act when he appeared this morning on This Week with Newt Gingrich to talk about health-care reform. If President Obama had put him in charge of selling the health reform effort, we probably wouldn't be having all these problems right now:

DEAN:I think putting $60 billion a year into the health insurance industry is insane. I really do.

And so you want a public option. Look, we've -- what the president wants to do is very straightforward. Sixty -- or roughly sixty -- fifty or sixty million Americans have what Newt has called socialized medicine or government-run health care. They're over -- over 65. They're Medicare. That's what Medicare is.

Now, what Obama is essentially saying is, "Let's give the choice of getting into a system like that or staying with what they have to the American people."

So if you're voting against having a public option, what you're voting against is something that 72 percent of Americans in two polls want, which is the choice. Most of them aren't going to sign up for the public option, but they think they should have the choice.

Why shouldn't they have the choice? Why should the health insurance companies have that choice?

STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the answer to that question?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, the government option we're talking about -- let's look at where government runs the health system entirely. The Indian Health Service is a disaster. Medicaid is so corrupt and run so badly -- we just published a book at the Center for Health Transformation called "Stop Paying the Crooks," because our estimate is that government fraud between Medicare and Medicaid is between $70 billion and $120 billion a year.

Hey Newt, do you suppose - bear with me a minute here - do you think the Indian Health Service problems just might come from the deep and crippling cuts inflicted on them by people like you and your buddies? Nah, never mind.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Veterans care works pretty well.

GINGRICH: Veterans care is the one system that actually works reasonably well. But the others do not. I mean, Medicare is basically a private system with a government funding.

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The Washington Independent: Long-awaited warrantless surveillance report finally released

Emptywheel: US government covered up war crimes committed by CIA's warlord

AlterNet: Hedge Fund would rather shut down a plant than pay it's workers a fair wage

Fired Up! Missouri: Roy Blunt says it would have been "best" if Medicare and Medicaid never existed.  Then there's this idiot, and this braying jackass

alicublog: The airing of grievances

The Birmingham Free Press: How to argue with a Global Warming denier

All these gyrations and negotiations to avoid even the possibility of a truly robust public plan! Ah well, there's probably some 11-dimensional chess going on here that I can't see. But I'll tell you what I can see: That everybody's represented at this particular table except us:

WASHINGTON -- It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.

I guess it all depends on what you mean by "stiff." Somehow, this statement has a whiff of Viagra spam about it: "Your instrument will be like a mighty oak." Uh huh.

"The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," he said in an interview. "The goal is non-negotiable; the path is" negotiable.

His comments came as the Senate Finance Committee pushed for a bipartisan deal. To help pay for the package, the committee planned to announce an agreement Wednesday with hospitals and the White House for $155 billion over a decade in reductions to Medicare and charity-care payments for hospitals, according to a person familiar with the agreement. That will help pay for the legislation, expected to cost at least $1 trillion over 10 years.

One of the most contentious issues is whether to create a public health-insurance plan to compete with private companies.

Mr. Emanuel said one of several ways to meet President Barack Obama's goals is a mechanism under which a public plan is introduced only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own. He noted that congressional Republicans crafted a similar trigger mechanism when they created a prescription-drug benefit for Medicare in 2003. In that case, private competition has been judged sufficient and the public option has never gone into effect.

Are you kidding me, Rahm? Plan D is a piece of crap, a fact that is well-known to the people who actually rely on it. Oh, I forgot - to you, a success has more to do with "getting the job done" in Congress than in actually fixing the problem. Solution-esque, as it were. This is your template? Dear God, we're screwed. Because that trigger mechanism was designed to never be triggered.

Mr. Obama has pushed hard for a vigorous public option. But he has also said he won't draw a "line in the sand" over this point.

Will this man draw a line in the sand over anything? Is nothing non-negotiable with President Obama? Oh, right: Banking bailouts.

The deal with the hospitals follows a similar agreement with brand-name drug companies. And insurance companies were talking to Senate negotiators about cuts worth at least $100 billion over 10 years, according to two officials with knowledge of the negotiations.

Congressional negotiators and the White House hope to lock in support from the industry groups, which are backing a health bill in general terms but have opposed past efforts.

But this time, they're really, really, really operating in good faith. Honest! (Charlie Brown, meet football.)

Hospitals and insurers hope to gain some degree of control over cuts to their federal payments. In principle, a health-care overhaul could benefit both groups by raising the number of Americans who buy and have health insurance.

"They've made an assessment reform is going to happen, so it's better to be part of that than not," Mr. Emanuel said.

However, insurers, and most Republicans, strongly oppose creation of a government-run insurance option, saying it would ultimately drive them out of business. Most Democrats support a public option.

The president and his aides already have signaled a willingness to consider an alternative to a public plan under which a network of nonprofit cooperatives would compete with for-profit insurance companies. That is the leading idea in the Senate Finance Committee.

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From Democracy Now, their headlines for June 26th. What do you know. Something went on in the world today other than the passing of Michael Jackson.

•Iranian Opposition Candidate Vows Continued Protests

•Ahmadinejad Accuses Obama of Meddling

•Witnesses: Hundreds Defy Ban to Honor Slain Protester

•13 Killed in Iraq Bombing

•Senate Health Negotiators Target Medicare, Medicaid, Uninsured

•Obama Urges Passage of Climate Bill

•Hamas Welcomes Obama’s “New Language,” Calls for Pressure on Israel

•Pakistani PM Calls for End to US Drone Attacks

•Nigeria Offers Amnesty to Niger Delta Militants

•Honduras in Crisis over Referendum Vote

•Senate Confirms FCC Nominee

•Supreme Court: Strip Search of Arizona Teen Illegal

Robert Reich was out beating the drum yesterday, speaking on "This Week" and posting this piece in Salon:

If you want to save universal healthcare, you must do several things, and soon:

1. Go to the nation. You're not only a powerful orator; you're also capable of motivating, energizing, and mobilizing the American public. You must go on the road -- building public support by forcefully making the case for universal health care everywhere around the country. The latest Wall Street Journal poll shows that three out of four Americans want universal healthcare. But the vast majority don't know what's happening on the Hill, don't know how much money the medical-industrial lobbies are spending to defeat it, and have no idea how much demagoguery they're about to be exposed to. You must tell them. And don't be reluctant to take on those vested interests directly. Name names. They've decided to fight you. You must fight them.

This is the president's biggest weakness. Please, more drama, Obama!

2. Be LBJ. So far, Lyndon Johnson has been the only president to defeat the American Medical Association and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. He got Medicare and Medicaid despite their cries of "socialized medicine" because he knocked heads on the Hill. He told Congress exactly what he wanted, cajoled and threatened those who resisted, and counted noses every hour until he had the votes he needed. When you're not on the road, you have to be twisting congressional arms and drawing a line in the sand. Be tough.

3. Forget the Republicans. Forget bipartisanship. Universal healthcare can pass with 51 votes. You can get 51 votes if you give up on trying to persuade a handful of Republicans to cross over. Eight years ago George W. Bush passed his huge tax cut, mostly for the wealthy, by wrapping it in an all-or-nothing reconciliation measure and daring Democrats to vote against it. You should do the same with healthcare.

4. Insist on a real public option. It's the linchpin of universal healthcare. It's one thing to give up on single payer, and say that a public option is the best feasible alternative. But further compromise would essentially gut any healthcare plan. Don't accept Kent Conrad's ersatz public option masquerading as a "healthcare cooperative." Cooperatives won't have the authority, scale, or leverage to negotiate low prices and keep private insurers honest.

5. Demand that taxes be raised on the wealthy to ensure that all Americans get affordable healthcare. Not even a real public option will hold down costs enough to make healthcare affordable to most American families in years to come. So you'll need to tax the wealthy. Don't back down on your original proposal to limit their deductions. And support a cap on how much employee-provided healthcare can be provided tax free. Yes, you opposed this during your campaign. But you have no choice but to reverse yourself on this. These are the only two big pots of money.

6. Put everything else on hold. As important as they are, your other agenda items -- financial reform, home mortgage mitigation, cap-and-trade legislation -- pale in significance relative to universal healthcare. By pushing everything at once, you take the public's mind off the biggest goal, diffuses your energies, blur your public message, and fuel the demagogues who say you're trying to take over the private sector. You have to win this.