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.

(Abraham Ribicoff - Secretary of Health, Education And Welfare in 1961 - also Hand Holder, Paranoia Assuager, Debunker)

In 1961, JFK introduced a bill that would provide medical assistance to the Aged. It later became known as Medicare and would later pass in 1965 during the Johnson Administration. As is always the case, the mere mention of anything connection with a government aid program where Healthcare is concerned is immediately tossed into the realm of Socialized Medicine. And in 1961 it was no different.

Newly appointed Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Abraham Ribioff was confronted by a dizzying array of skepticism from the Insurance and Pharmaceutical industries who instantly labeled any kind of Healthcare reform as Socialized Medicine. As is evidenced by this exchange between Ribicoff and Meet The Press co-founder Lawrence Spivak:

Lawrence Spivak: “ Mister Secretary, as you know the AMA and others have charged that the Medical Bill for the Aged under Social Security is an opening wedge to Socialized Medicine. Now if you thought there was a chance that the bill might be an opening wedge to Socialized Medicine, would you still be for it?”

Abraham Ribicoff: “ Well, it’s not an opening wedge to Socialized Medicine, I’m for the bill.

Spivak: “No, I’m asking if you thought that it was an opening wedge . . .

Ribicoff: “I would be against it . . .I would be against the bill if it were Socialized Medicine. . . “

Spivak: “If it opened the door to Socialized Medicine?”

Ribicoff: “It doesn’t open the door to Socialized Medicine”

Spivak: “Would you tell us what makes you so sure that it doesn’t?”

Ribicoff: “Because you and I and every other American, Mister Spivak has the right to choose his own doctor. There is nothing in this bill that has anything to do with doctors. This bill takes care of the health needs to the people of America, our aged over sixty-five, and basically takes care of their hospital bills, their nursing home bills and their visits to the home for home care. The bill specifically provides that each and every American has the right to choose his own doctor and his own hospital.”

The bill wound up being defeated, owing to a Congress recess and an overheated paranoia campaign (sound familiar?). But the Medicare Bill did finally pass in 1965.

The eerie sense of Deja-vu is everywhere.

Back in 2003, Republican leaders praised the AARP for its support of President Bush's unfunded and deeply flawed Medicare prescription benefit. But now that the 40 million member organization has endorsed the House Democrats' health care reform bill, the GOP is declaring war on its one-time ally. Helping lead the attack is an array of industry-funded front groups and their reactionary has-been spokesmen like Pat Boone.

Last week, Republican Congressmen Dave Reichert (R-WA) and Mike Pence (R-IN) implied the nation's leading organization for seniors was in for the ACORN treatment from the GOP and its media allies. Despite the thorough debunking of right-wing claims that Democratic health care reform proposals would slash Medicare benefits for46 million American elderly:

Pence and Reichert suggested that support was the result of corruption inside the AARP and not based on the interests of its membership.

"What you've got here is a backroom deal," Pence said of reform measures expected to be introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this afternoon. "Democrats are protecting the salaries of the heads of groups like AARP while cutting Medicare"...

The GOP is using more than just rhetoric to go after the group. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) claims to have launched an investigation into AARP in his home state. Reichert says his "ongoing" investigation focuses on whether AARP should be classified as an insurance company because of its revenue from royalties the group gets from licensing its brand for insurance products.

Sounding the clarion call for conservatives is aging singer turned World Net Daily regular Pat Boone. Boone, who in recent months branded Barack Obama a "president without a country" who is "waterboarding America" over "socialistic health care and a host of other ultraliberal causes," is also the celebrity mouthpiece for the 60 Plus Association.

Continue reading »

Keith talks to Rep. Alan Grayson about whether he thinks the Democrats will get a bill through the House this week and whether we'll be able to call what's passed reform. He also asked him what he thought would be in John Boehner and the Republicans' yet to be written health care plan they're supposed to be releasing this week.

Olbermann: You have already outlined on the floor of the House one of or the basic Republican tenets of a health insurance plan. When Mr. Boehner says he's going to have an alternative bill ready, first off they've been saying that all year and there's been nothing yet, so far. But is there actually one in the works and have your heard anything of what's been in it?

Grayson: I think what's in it is more of the same. They're going to try to do whatever they can to placate the insurance companies. The Republican national party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America and that's especially true of the insurance companies. They'll do whatever the insurance companies want.

Sadly the same thing can be said about a few too many of the Democrats with positions on the Senate Finance Committee. If you want to help out one of the good guys out there and donate to Rep. Grayson't Act Blue money bomb, here's the link.

A gaffe, Michael Kinsley famously mused, is what results when a politician inadvertently tells the truth. And so it was Monday when Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch came clean about his party's scorched-earth opposition to health care reform being championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Hatch acknowledged, as I've long argued, that the GOP is worried not that Obama's health care initiatives might fail, but that they might succeed.

As he did in his pivotal effort to block Bill Clinton's health care efforts starting in 1993, conservative strategist Bill Kristol warned his Republican allies then as now that that a victory for President Obama would earn his party the thanks of a grateful public and guarantee Democratic majorities for the foreseeable future. In an interview with CNS Monday, Senator Hatch revealed that was his darkest fear as well:

HATCH: That's their goal. Move people into government that way. Do it in increments. They've actually said it. They've said it out loud.

Q: This is a step-by-step approach --

HATCH: A step-by-step approach to socialized medicine. And if they get there, of course, you're going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody's going to say, "All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party."

Q: They'll have reduced the American people to dependency on the federal government.

HATCH: Yeah, you got that right. That's their goal. That's what keeps Democrats in power.

Continue reading »

From Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol is hoping that people will see the lines for H1N1 vaccines and come to the conclusion that the government can't run anything properly. As Juan Williams points out, that's what happens when you have Republicans who don't believe in government running things and don't want government to work as we saw in George's Bush's complete indifference to the plight of the victims were during Hurricane Katrina. Williams should have also pointed out to him that Republicans managed to make sure FEMA worked pretty well when it benefited them politically in Florida.

As Williams also noted, these are private companies working with the government that failed to deliver the vaccines in the time frame promised. Fox News and much of the rest of the media seem to have a problem deciding on whether to fear monger about whether vaccines are safe or not and people being forced to get them as Jon Stewart pointed out not long ago on The Daily Show and complaining about them not being delivered fast enough. Now we've got Kristol conflating receiving vaccinations to the government being capable of administering health insurance.

Wallace: Bill you’ve never liked the Democratic health care plan in its various iterations and you especially don’t like this version. In fact you say it combines the most unpopular Democratic and Republican proposals in the last generation.

Kristol: Right, it’s got the Medicare cuts that almost doomed the Gingrich revolution in 1995, the Pelosi Medicare cuts dwarf the Gingrich Medicare cuts of 1995 and it’s got tax hikes—the tax hikes which the Clintons and the Democratic Congress passed on a party line vote in 1993 that cost them the Congress in 1994. And Nancy Pelosi has pulled off a great feat; you called it a compromised vote. It’s like a compromise between awful and horrendous you know. She’s combined tax hikes and Medicare cuts in the same bill in a bill that does nothing to improve the average Americans’ health care or to improve the cost of the average Americans’ health insurance. It’s an amazing feat that she’s done and now she’s pushing this bill, this huge government take over of the health care system at the moment when we have an experiment, an ongoing experiment in government health care—the swine flu epidemic—an emergency the president called it.

If you like how the government’s run swine flu with lines and cues and promises that haven’t come through in terms of having the vaccines available—if you like the government’s swine flu program, you’ll love Pelosi-Care.

Continue reading »

Back in September, a study by Harvard Medical School found that over 44,000 Americans die each year due to lack of health insurance. Now, in a complete reversal of both logic and the truth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that it is the availability of a public insurance option which could prove fatal. Of course, McConnell's announcement that the public option "may cost you your life" should come as no surprise. After all, in July he echoed George W. Bush and Tom Delay in declaring that thanks to the emergency room, Americans "don't go without health care."

Mitch McConnell's latest fear-mongering came during an appearance on Dennis Miller's radio show. Blasting the "opt-out" version of the public option in the Senate bill, the Senator from the state ranked 45th in health care performance insisted access to coverage could be deadly:

MCCONNELL: Well, it doesn't make any difference frankly whether you opt-in or you opt-out, it's still a government plan. You know, Medicaid, the program for the poor now, states can opt-out of that, but none of them have. I think if you have any kind of government insurance program, you're going to be stuck with it and it will lead us in the direction of the European style, you know, sort of British-style, single payer, government run system. And those systems are known for delays, denial of care and, you know, if your particular malady doesn't fit the government regulation, you don't get the medication.

MILLER: Right.

MCCONNELL: And it may cost you your life. I mean, we don't want to go down that path.

While he has generally left the myth-making about "death panels" and "pulling the plug on grandma" to Sarah Palin, Chuck Grassley and other tall tale tellers in the GOP, Senator McConnell has otherwise been fabricator-in-chief when it comes to Republican talking points on health care.

Continue reading »

MyDD : The worries of Joe Lieberman

MOMocrats: A cry for help

Amygdala: Let's burn all the Bibles!

PERRspectives: Broun joins Palin in backing GOP plan to privatize Medicare

Lean Left : Dumbest painfully serious political metaphor of the day

cab drollery: A top cop gets it

I really don’t know how Joe Conason can manage to sit through these panel segments on Lou Dobbs’ show, but it’s nice to see him on there to dispel some of the right-wing talking points being thrown around by Dobbs and the other guests. He does a good job countering KellyAnne Conway on the Republicans' newfound love of Medicare, and Dobbs for downplaying some of the profits of the larger insurance companies.

He may not have known that Dobbs was parroting Glenn Beck at the end of the segment. Dobbs needs to just move on over to ClusterFox and get it over with.

CONWAY: The opt out is a canard because if you really want people—if you really want to provide an opt out, allow small business owners to opt out. This administration's policies have been an assault on small business owners, believe me, and or allow seniors to opt out of the cuts in Medicare which are currently on the table.

CONASON: Cuts in the private Medicare.

CONWAY: But Joe it's huge. When people hear it, they think it’s mostly a bad idea.

CONASON: We should discuss what that really is.

CONWAY: Go ahead because, again—explain the differences.

CONASON: It's the $500 billion in cuts. It’s to cut something called Medicare Advantage…

CONWAY: Right, which a lot of seniors rely on.

CONASON: No, it’s a subsidy to private insurance companies to try to compete with Medicare because they can't compete with Medicare. When people complain about a government-run health care program Lou, they're complaining about a program that is very like Medicare which the Republicans now claim to be defending. So it's a very interesting contradiction in their positions. On the one hand, they're trying to save Medicare, that government run program. On the other hand, they don't want anyone else to have it…

Continue reading »

d r i f t g l a s s: Nobody left but the crazies (h/t Frank Chow)

Burnt Orange Report: Lawyers speaking out in response to Todd Willingham's "utterly disgraceful" trial attorney

Abu Maqawama: The most important article on Afghanistan you'll read this week

Open Left: A second fire has started on the public option fight, this time in the House.

TPMMuckraker: Pelosi's claim that the CIA misled her is validated by the House Intel Committee

The Satirical Political Report: Bush breaks the mold as a motivational speaker

In between Ben Nelson's hackery which John is going to tackle here, Sherrod Brown on State of the Union did a nice job of calling out Orrin Hatch for the Republicans hatred of Medicare and explaining why it is important, at minimum, to have a public option included in the health care bill.

KING: Senator Brown, let me come to you. A big state, health care's a huge issue. I'm wondering if you share the frustration that many progressives on the House side share when they're told, well, the White House is pushing this idea of a trigger, maybe, because they want to keep Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the one Republican who has backed it in the Senate so far. There are many who have said, this is the United States of America, not the United States of Maine. Does the White House have the calculation wrong here?

BROWN: Well, I'll answer the question about the trigger first. The trigger says, let's give the insurance companies two more years after they've had five decades since World War II to do things right. They continue their practices of pre-existing condition. You know, reports recently that a woman that has a C-section, by some insurance companies, will be denied care because that's considered a pre- existing condition. A woman that's been a victim of domestic violence, that's considered a pre-existing condition because her husband or boyfriend or whomever is more likely to hit her again.

I mean, the insurance companies have had their chance to do this right. We need the public option now. We need it in large part because it will inject competition into places where they don't have it. In southwest Ohio in my state, two insurance companies have 85 percent of the market. They need more competition to discipline those companies, to make them more honest, to bring prices down.

Continue reading »

From Face the Nation, Russ Feingold has to remind Bob Schieffer that the "public option" is not a "liberal" position on health care reform. It's a compromise. What liberals want is single-payer.

SCHIEFFER: Let’s talk a little bit about health care. Where do you think health care reform stands in the Senate right now? I know you want the public option, the government-run insurance program, like Medicare for older people. The majority leader now seems inclined to include that in the bill that he’s going to bring to the floor. Do you think that has any chance at this point of passage? Because for a while now, people have been saying the votes are just not there in the Senate.

FEINGOLD: Well, I want to give my majority leader, Harry Reid credit for seriously considering putting this public option in there. I think it’s very important. It’s a sign of strong leadership on his part that he has the guts to do that. Because the American people are for some alternative that will create some competition for the abuses of the insurance industry. So I believe that there’s a good chance it will be in the bill that comes before us in the Senate. I think we have some chance of prevailing in the Senate on it and if we don't I think there's a chance it will come through the House. So I’m becoming increasingly optomistic that we will have a health care bill that will not frighten the American people, that they'll be able to see as reasonable -- it's not a complete government take over health care, but will provide an option for those that don’t have health care or are unhappy with their health care to do something else and I'm frankly getting excited that we may have some momentum for something very positive.

SCHIEFFER: As I understand it, the liberals want the, want the public option. The conservatives don’t. Do you think there’s a possibility that this thing may just end up in a log jam, that liberals won’t vote for this plan without the public option and the conserves won’t vote for it if it includes the public option, and so we wind up with nothing instead of something?

FEINGOLD: Well, that could happen, but the truth is, what liberals want is a single-payer system. Medicare for everybody. So the idea of a public option is really a very moderate idea. Within the current context of a continuing private system, it’s a tough one to swallow for many people who want a single-payer system. So this is a very reasonable approach that I would think people who are both conservative and liberal and in the middle would say, let’s try this; let’s see if this can control and bring under some reason of measure that the insurance companies could finally improve their act.

That is exactly what -- what this is. It is not a liberal or left-wing concept at all.

Continue reading »

From Think Progress: Rep. Weiner Identifies 55 Republicans On Medicare Who ‘Steadfastly Oppose’ The Public Option

Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) office today released an internal study showing that 151 members of Congress “currently receive government-funded; government-administered single-payer health care — Medicare.” Of those 151 members, 55 are Republicans who also happen to be “steadfastly opposed [to] other Americans getting the public option, like the one they have chosen.” Included on Weiner’s list are anti-public option crusaders Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), and Rep. Peter King (R-NY).

Rep. Weiner talked explained why his office released that study on C-SPAN's Washington Journal.

WEINER: Well it’s more kind of another way of looking at this debate, this discussion about the public option, to put it in focus. We went, just out of curiosity, looked at how many members of Congress get the public option. And I know a lot of people have said, “Well under the new bill, how many of you members of Congress would choose the public option?”

Well there already is one; it’s called Medicare. And we found that 55 Republicans and 151 members of Congress are on Medicare right now. So they’re already getting the same type of public option that we’d like people who are without insurance to be able to get. And I guess the purpose of this list was to kind of point out some of the hypocrisy of this debate.

You have members of Congress thumping their chest how they’re against government health care, against government control of health care, socialized medicine and yet when it’s time for them to accept Medicare, they’re like, ‘Sign me up!’

And part of what I’ve argued in arguing for a single-payer system is that when we have Medicare for those that are 65, why not 64? Why not 24, like, you’re about 24 right?

C-SPAN HOST: Sure.

Weiner: And why not have that type of a system that has lower overhead, lower costs and you don’t have to deal with the 30% of profits and overhead that insurance companies take. So we compiled this list largely to point a bright light on some of the hypocrisy of this debate, but also I hope it gets people thinking—if Medicare is good enough for 151 members of Congress, why shouldn’t a program like it be created for those who want to go out and buy insurance?

I actually did get to hear this live on C-SPAN radio the other day and didn't get a chance to get back to it sooner. I was glad to see Think Progress picked it up. I would have liked for Rep. Weiner to have taken this a bit further and ask if those members of Congress would care to give up their Medicare—since they think that having government administered health insurance is such a terrible thing. I would guess the answer is "No".

I've been a little down lately, because it seems too many people are in a state of learned helplessness and don't want to participate in our democracy if it involves stepping away from the computer.

But then I saw this letter from Michael Moore and I felt a lot better. Because it's still our country, and we can still make a difference:

Friends,

It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"

You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.

Here they are:

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter!

Continue reading »

Jacob Hack, the policy wonk who was the architect of the public option idea, talks about opening Medicare instead.

It's a concept that many people in the netroots resist on the basis that Medicare is a public insurance system, and the public option... isn't. (They point to Medicare Advantage as the perfect example of misleading branding.)

But the idea is picking up steam because it solves several problems. It offers political cover for Blue Dogs and even Republicans who want to support the plan. It also makes it more likely that at some point, the public option will be rolled into the traditional Medicare plan:

House Democrats are looking at re-branding the public health insurance option as Medicare, an established government healthcare program that is better known than the public option.

The strategy could benefit Democrats struggling to bridge the gap between liberals in their party, who want the public option, and centrists, who are worried it would drive private insurers out of business.

While much of the public is foggy on what a public option actually is, people understand Medicare. It also would place the new public option within the rubric of a familiar system rather than something new and unknown.

The idea has bubbled up among House Democrats and leaders in the past week, most prominently in a caucus meeting last Thursday.

Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) spoke out last week in favor of re-branding the public option as Medicare, startling many because he has loudly proclaimed his opposition to a public option.

[...] Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) planned to unveil a proposal to her caucus Tuesday night that would include the public option favored by liberals in the healthcare bill Democrats want to bring to the floor, according to two House sources.

The plan, called the “robust” option or “Medicare Plus 5” in the jargon that has emerged on Capitol Hill, ties provider reimbursement rates to Medicare, adding 5 percent. Leaders are planning to roll the bill out next week, and are hoping to vote the first week in November

Some Democrats say there’s no need to rename a legislative concept that’s gained steadily in support since being lambasted as a “government takeover” in August. A Washington Post-ABC poll published Tuesday showed 57 percent of the public supports the idea — up five points since August — while 40 percent opposes it.

“It keeps polling better and better as a public health insurance option,” said a senior Democratic aide. “I don’t think it’s changing.” Polling experts, however, have documented that many people don’t know what a public option is, and that small changes in language can cause poll results to vary widely. An August poll by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates showed that only 37 percent of those polled correctly identified the public option from a list of three choices.

“Before this year, few people had ever heard of the term ‘public option,’ ” Ross said last week.

It’s not clear exactly how the new Medicare idea would work. Some want to expand Medicare itself to uninsured people under 65. Others want to simply rename what is now called the public health insurance option.

Lots more, go read and tell me what you think.