What we are able to do with the car has a lot to do with how well we are able to steer the post election narrative on the next few days I think.

Hopefully we can turn this into "America has seen the disastrous conclusion of conservative philosophy from Reagan forward and rejected it."  Such a broad message allows us to apply our mandate on a great variety of fronts.

I look forward to seeing Obama sign the Edward M. Kennedy Health Care bill.

Huffpo just reported that Reid is expected to meet with Lieberputz this week and talk to him about his committee asignments.

Get this: The article says Reid is not sure what he'll do yet!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05 /reid-to-meet-with-lieberm_n_141332.html

Somebody has to hold Harry Reid's feet to the fire on this. Lieberputz has to be sent packing.

A little election night humor about the news coverage:

http://www.thecolonelandcompany.com/

Happy 5th!  Woo-hoo!

It has to be universal AND mandatory

It has to have a public AND private insurance option available to all

It has to contain measures to control costs - of both insurance premiums and health care

Regulation of private insurance would have to be enacted to end provisions for pre-existing conditions, etc.

Without these, it will fail because it will only result in higher costs both to providers and taxpayers.  Uninsured people cost the system a lot of money.

The issue of tax credits / rebates, etc. also has an inherent problem.  A recent study showed women who purchase individual insurance plans pay premiums that are 40-50% higher than men, regardless of pre-exisiting conditions.  Tax credits would be of little or no help to them.

Not all of these are in Obama's health care plan.  Trying to implement reform "incrementally" could result in the same mess as the Wall Street bailout - doing more harm than good.

Starting with what would be portrayed as a radical health care plan sounds a lot like 1993 to me.  He should build up more good will and trust first on other economic issues

Damn, everything is broke on this car and we have no gas money!!!!!

I just think statement like that BO has the opperatunity to establish himself as one of the ture great presidents in the first few days of office is not helpful.  It is like putting to much pressure on a 1st round, 1st pick quartback who has just been drafted.

The country and the fininical mess include the debt will take several years to fix.  IMHO BO has to fix the mess before he pushes through a progressive agenda and it is a mistake to start with big issues like health care.

As an example the goverment takes in 2.5 trillion a year in taxes and spends 2 trillion on entitlements and 1/2 trillion on defensive. Last year we were 500 billion in debt and that 500 billion represents all of non-defense/entitlement spending. So the first thing BO is going to have to do is get spending and the debt under control before he can do much else.  He needs to do what Bill Clinton did and fix the debt first and then pass is agenda.

david

A single-payer health care financing plan would actually help reduce the budget (less so short term during the transition, more in the long term).  It is most likely to be too heavily attacked to pass at the national level, but several states are also working on it, most notably CA.  Kennedy's plan isn't much more than a band aid and very difficult to implement in reality, perhaps more than single-payer which is relatively simple.  Problem is that the private insurers lose business.  I don't know that Obama has enough "political capital" to force through a major overhaul of any sort - it will take a massive grassroots movement to overcome the business interests who will oppose whatever is proposed, so we might as well go for single-payer IMO.

One hidden advantage of economic slowdowns is that people have more time. What would be a better time for people to get long-endured health issues dealt with.

Its obvious that health and disease are political issues, and one distressing fact is that the poor are far more likely to suffer from often untreated chronic disease than the well to do.

Things like exposure to unsafe housing or schools (lead paint, chronic leaks and flooding, etc.) or lack of adequate dental care can jump start inflammation, leading to other chronic illnesses like athsma, diabetes, etc.

We need to make a national committment to address these issues. Doing so, we would be helping improve all of our futures.

Fix our election day problems.  The Republicans would never let that happen. Now we can actually make it fair enough so more than likely every vote really WILL count.  The number of extra voters we have to get out there so per a law of averages we can still get the win is ridiculous.