“Democrats who are feeling queasy need to grow a spine and get this done.”

Publius discusses why the D’s cannot tolerate foot-draggers on health care:

Every single Democrat — every single one — is currently enjoying the benefits of campaign promises to fix health care.  The Democratic Party has made it a goal for decades to fix health care coverage in this country.  The issue is intricately tied up with the “brand” in a way that few issues are.  The party advantages on this issue not only helped get Obama elected, it helped the Democrats secure big majorities — the fruits of which all of them are enjoying, including the most conservative ones.

And so now the question is — to put it bluntly — whether the Democratic Party is one giant fraud.  Is this an issue that Democrats really care about?  Is it something they’re willing to fight for?  Are they willing to put aside the normal idiocy of legislative sausage-making, and I-want-mine-ism?  Or is it just a campaign promise they roll out in the fall to help beat Republicans so that they can go about raising money?

Josh Marshall mentions it today — but the opportunity has never been better.  If it can’t be done now, it can’t be done.  And if it can’t be done, it’s not because of the GOP.  It’s because the Democratic Party is a fraud.

Government’s “new” role

Steve Gimbel:

So, in the attempt to derail health care reform, GOP chairman Michale Steele had this to say,

“You’re journalists. You scrutinize this stuff. You mean you’re sitting here and telling me that this is not unprecedented? That even you aren’t shocked at the degree to which this Administration is bringing the government not just into our lives, but into the very relationship between the doctor and the patient?

Between the patient and his insurance company?

Between the insurance company and the market?

This is unprecedented government intrusion into the private sector. Period.”

The relationship between the patient and his insurance company? Really? I mean isn’t that like fretting about putting government paid law enforcement between a victim and his mugger?

I agree… that patient/insurance company one makes no sense. The last one (insurance company/market) actually isn’t true either. Not for the currently proposed plan anyway, which simply adds another player in the market, rather than displacing the market altogether.

$1 Gasoline price increase = 9 million fewer fatties

"Daily Traffic" by Burning Image, "Big Belly" by gut_squeezer, and "Bicycle commuting" by Peter Blanchard

Just showing how interconnected so many issues are: not sure I’d have guessed transportation reform could get you health reform.

Just say you’re sorry

Reducing malpractice costs could be as simple as doctors saying “I’m sorry,” if they made a mistake.

(Danke: Ezra Klein)

Homeopathic ER

“Frenchie-froggy-frenchie-froggy” healthcare edition

Dennis Boyles says: “Frenchie Froggy Frenchie Froggy.”

Matthew Yglesias says: “False.”

Eddie Izzard says:

Yeah, that wasn’t his “Frenchie-Froggy-Frenchie-Froggy” bit on the tiff between France and Britain during the Mad Cow Disease scare… but I couldn’t find it. Deal.

ReTweet: “Broken America”

An exercise in cynicism by Sullivan and one of his readers:

A reader writes:

Sorry, but I don’t understand why anyone would be excited about the Waxman bill. I imagine it’s well-intentioned. But this is a country that can’t even raise the gas tax from 18.4 cents to 30 cents. This is a country with a Nobel laureate who heads the Energy Department, who announces that global warming could be reduced by simply painting more roofs (and other surfaces) white, and of course we all know that we’ll never actually do this. This is a country with terribly unbalanced finances, and we all know that of course no one will raise the retirement age for social security, not even by 6 months, to take effect next year. This is a country that, fully-aware that there is a glut of cars in the world, subsidizes… GM and Chrysler. So why on earth would anyone think that this country can do anything to affect global warming?

Apologies for the cynicism, but when there are so many “softball solutions” that seem to have no prospect of actually happening, it’s hard to care about an ambitious bill about climate change.

I have to say I agree. I know the system mitigates against swift change – and that’s its beauty – but it also seems to be resistant to any change that might benefit the public interest if it can be prevented by massively powerful private interests or ideological campaigns based in cynicism and the pursuit of power.

Watching how this government can do nothing to reform health care, nothing to end the wars and occupations that drain the coffers, nothing to tackle entitlements even as the country teeters toward complete insolvency, nothing to reform a broken immigration system … even after a president is elected with a clear mandate and a Congressional majority in both Houses: well, we know why America is fucked, don’t we?

I gotta say that I’m too young to be this cynical… but theirs is an informed cynicism based on a history of failures. But what it doesn’t take into account is America’s history of successes in certain areas as well.

There’s a certain amount of cynicism that is healthy. And I think on the whole, Andrew is pretty positive and hopeful (“Know Hope” is a common meme in his writing). So taking this post out of context from his daily barrage of posts is a little unfair.

But, if you haven’t, take a look at this short TED talk about perspectives on time. I think it lays out a healthy time perspective that we should try to hold even in the context of a government that often fails more than it succeeds.

Sully, this one goes out to you:

On healthcare and the “public option”

Nate Silver does a great job of breaking it down. This is an issue I’ve teetered on for a long time… and this is probably the most coherent argument in favor of the publicly financed option I’ve heard. Worth a read.

ReTweet: “When Markups Stop Being Polite and Start Getting Real”

By Ezra Klein:

Things are getting a bit punchy at the HELP markup. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) says that he’s not sure who wrote the Affordable Health Choices Act but that if you put “Rube Goldberg, Karl Marx, and Ira Magaziner in a room,” you’d have ended up with something pretty close. A classy, gracious line from the man who was nearly Obama’s secretary of commerce.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) shoots back, “Our current system is a combination of Adam Smith, Darth Vader, and the Bodysnatchers. So I like our plan better!”

Swine flu update

Labeling food to make us skinnier

Ezra Klein at his new WaPo post talks about the MEAL Act:

Image used under a CC license from Flickr user Marshall Astor.

Hence: Menu labeling. The key insight here is that small changes in behavior can have large impacts on outcomes. A Health Impact Assessment (pdf) prepared for the city of Los Angeles estimated that if calorie labeling convinced a mere 10 percent of large-chain patrons to order meals that were merely 100 calories lighter, then menu labeling “would avert 38.9% of the 6.75 million pound average annual weight gain in the county population aged 5 years and older.” Get 20 percent to reduce their meals by 75 calories? You’ve knocked out 58.3 percent of the projected 6.75 million pounds. That’s huge.

Comparative effectiveness review

Ezra Klein likens the need to defend CER to the need to defend the use of evidence.

Pooh and Piglet

Overreacting

"Pig!" by johnmuk

Ezra makes the case for short-term overreaction to the swine flu:

But if the flu isn’t very virulent, it does appear to be extremely infectious. The reason is simple enough: It’s a new strain of flu that human beings don’t have resistance against. Not only can it spread very quickly, it is spreading very quickly. We’ve hit five on the World Health Organization’s flu threat level. It only goes up to six. Six denotes a pandemic: The flu has spread to two or more WHO regions. And most experts expect we’ll be there in days.

It’s true that people shouldn’t panic in the sense of stockpiling ammunition and duct taping windows. But this is a situation in which a short-term overreaction might be the best strategy. That would mean that people really curtail the sort of activities that abet the spread of infection: They cancel non-essential travel, bike rather than take the subway, wash their hands obsessively, etc. It’s not crazy stuff. And unlike in financial crises or recessions, where cutting spending worsens the downturn, the sensible actions for fearful individuals will actually improve the probable outcomes.

It’s about time he screwed up

I was really jonesing for a Joe-Biden-being-Joe-Biden moment. He delivers:

Article here.