From McJoan at DK:

The Obama administration has already sent a sternly-worded letter to Anthem Blue Cross over the company's excessive rate increase for individual policy holders in California. How excessive? Up to 39 percent. But that's not all. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield also informed their customers that they are changing their practice of adjusting rates annually, and as of now are reserving the right to raise premiums basically whenever they feel like it.

You got that? They want to do exactly what the credit card companies were doing.

There's little beyond sternly-worded letters that the administration can do, other than something like maybe advocating strongly for some kind of legislative remedy, say in the form of serious competition to private insurers in the form of a robust public option for health insurance. But there's something Congress can do, and that's put the insurers on the hot seat and investigate. From the Speaker's blog, The Gavel:

As Secretary Sebelius pointed out, WellPoint [parent company to Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield] reported a staggering $2,740,000,000 in profits for the fourth quarter of 2009 alone – eight times more than the last quarter of 2008 – and more than $4,750,000,000 for all of 2009. In fact, the company reaped these record profits even as it lost more than 1.4 million members.....

Today, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak announced that the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on February 24th regarding the premium rate increases.

The hearing, conveniently, will be held on February 24, the day before the bipartisan White House healthcare summit.

This story reeks of "I'm on deadline, I don't feel like working that hard so I'll just expand this handy list of Republican bullet points and then call a few Democrats for 'balance.'" But then, maybe it's just me:

WASHINGTON — When Republicans take President Obama up on his invitation to hash out their differences over health care this month, they will carry with them a fairly well-developed set of ideas intended to make health insurance more widely available and affordable, by emphasizing tax incentives and state innovations, with no new federal mandates and only a modest expansion of the federal safety net.

Umm, excuse me, Mr. Reporter? What do you mean by "fairly well-developed"? And why are you just taking their word for it that their ideas will make health insurance more affordable? Did you, you know, ask any experts?

It is not clear that Republicans and the White House are willing to negotiate seriously with each other, and Mr. Obama has rejected Republican demands that he start from scratch in developing health care legislation.

But Congressional Republicans have laid out principles and alternatives that provide a road map to what a Republican health care bill would look like if they had the power to decide the outcome.

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were writing a press release!

[...] The Republicans rely more on the market and less on government.

Ha ha ha! Oh, I get it now: It's a parody of a press release, like Stephen Colbert!

All kidding aside, is this really journalism? Not by any stretch of the imagination. There's no new information, there's only the Republican insistence on their far-fetched version of reality - which we could just as easily get from Fox News. New York Times, maybe you should put some actual work into these stories if you plan to charge us for them.

I saw President Obama talking to Katie Couric before the Super Bowl, and I didn't breathe for a few minutes as I took in what he was proposing. I guess they are spooked by the losses of the mythical independent voters in recent polling, but even if that's the case, it's a horrible idea from my perspective.

President Obama said Sunday that he would convene a half-day bipartisan health-care session at the White House to be televised live this month, a high-profile gambit that will allow Americans to watch as Democrats and Republicans try to break their political impasse.

Mr. Obama made the announcement in an interview on CBS during the Super Bowl pre-game show, capitalizing on a vast television audience. He set out a plan that would put Republicans on the spot to offer their own ideas on health care and show whether both sides are willing to work together.

“I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Mr. Obama said in the interview from the White House Library.

Mr. Obama challenged Republicans to attend the meeting with their plans for lowering the cost of health insurance and expanding coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. Republican leaders said they welcomed the opportunity and called on Democrats to start the debate from scratch, which the president said he would not do.

I understand the strategy behind them doing this, but the country is too polarized at this point to really turn perceptions enough to make any difference.

This will accomplish nothing except to possibly empower Republican obstructionists even more. They will tell us what wonderful new ideas they have and that if only Obama opened up competition in all the states, it would solve all the problems in health care. Here's Crying Boehner's response:

"The best way to start on real, bipartisan reform would be to scrap those bills and focus on the kind of step-by-step improvements that will lower health care costs and expand access. The House Republican alternative, which would lower premiums by up to 10 percent while increasing access for Americans without health insurance, would be a solid starting point. I look forward to discussing these issues with the Democratic Leadership and the President."

America didn't elect President Obama so that Republicans could rule the legislative process, but through the guidance of David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, that's what's happening now. There is no way Republicans will sign on to anything at this point unless the president gives in to all of their demands.

Funny thing how Obama keeps reaching out to the other side instead of his own. I'd much rather have a liberal blogger meeting with President Obama instead of having to endure this.

Digby also adds a lot to this discussion and brings a really smart observation to the discussion. Much sharper than what you'd hear from the MSM.

It's fascinating, of course, because it's gossip and because some in the White House and others close to the administration have decided to try to dethrone these four. The courtiers are rebelling...read on

UPDATE: And here comes the reinforcements. There's and article in FT.com that says the Chicago team is hurting the Obama White House and I can't disagree on that one.

Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief Edward Luce has written a granularly informed insider account about those who hold the keys to the inner most sanctum of Obama Land -- Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.

--
The article goes on to document how people like Health Secretary and former Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius were kept off television -- along with others like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Add to this others that Luce does not name -- including important voices like Paul Volcker and Austan Goolsbee on Obama's economic team, who saw their public voices choked off by a media-dominating Lawrencean Summers with support from Robert Gibbs and Rahm Emanuel.

I've been complaining about the lack of surrogate speakers to go out and sell his ideas and the lack of a cohesive legislative strategy and that's been a huge problem also. Read the piece---it's very good. Oh, and Obama is the president and isn't a child so he still has the ultimate say.

I suppose the president is doing this as political cover for the eventual use of reconciliation. But I suspect he really thinks he's going to change the way things work in Congress -- either he's crazy, or a genius. Personally, I wish he'd give up trying to be the Great Mediator and just ram through his agenda - the same way George Bush did with much less public support:

President Obama moved to jump-start the stalled health-care debate Sunday, inviting Republicans in Congress to participate in a bipartisan, half-day televised summit on the subject this month.

The president made the offer in an interview with CBS News anchor Katie Couric hours before the network televised the Super Bowl.

Obama challenged Republicans, who have been largely unified in opposing his proposals, to bring their best ideas for how to cover more Americans and fix the health insurance system to the public discussion.

"I want to consult closely with our Republican colleagues," Obama said. "What I want to do is to ask them to put their ideas on the table. . . . I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward."

The invitation to meet together on Feb. 25 -- and to do so live in front of the American public -- represents an effort by Obama to hit the reset button on the top domestic priority of his first year in office. It also reflects a recognition that he must have at least some Republican support if he hopes to see health-care reform pass.

[...] GOP leaders on Sunday said they welcomed the outreach but called it evidence that Obama knows he must start over if he wants to earn their support going forward.

There's a reason Blue America PAC targeted Blanche Lincoln over the summer: She's a ConservaDem who is up for reelection and was standing with the health-insurance industry over average working Americans. Our Campaign For Health Care Choice action raised enough money to blanket the state of Arkansas with ads that demanded she vote for change in our health care system. If you can, please continue to donate.

During Obama's conference with Senate Democrats yesterday, Lincoln whined to the president like a good little neo-Republican and asked him to moderate and bow down to Republicans. Have you ever heard of such a thing being said from a party member to its own president?

In one key exchange this morning, Obama rebuked pleas from Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) that he moderate his agenda and work with Republicans to ease the current state of economic uncertainty.

Lincoln described a constituent who she said was "extremely frustrated because there was a lack of certainty and predictability from his government for him to be able to run his businesses."

She asked: "Are we willing, as Democrats, not only to reach out to Republicans, but to push back in our own party for people who want extremes, and look for the common ground that's going to get us the success that we need not only for our constituents, but for our country, in this global community, in this global economy?"

Wow, I didn't know trying to fight for the public option and the best possible health care system is considered extreme in her mind. See, we're the bad guys and not the idiots who littered the town-hall meetings flinging racial insults and bizarre conspiracy theories around like they were candy. Rahm uttered his stupid remark behind closed doors, but conservatives are out front with their lunacy. President Obama then calls out Blanche.

From there, Obama turned to a more pointed critique of Lincoln's argument. "If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression -- we don't tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don't put in place any insurance reforms, we don't mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they're doing now because we don't want to stir up Wall Street -- the result is going to be the same," he said. "I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place."

Middle class Americans, Obama said, "are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don't want to -- we don't want to stir things up here, we're just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don't know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don't know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us."

It's doubtful that Obama has really learned his lesson about these Senate "moderates". But it's good to see him finally drawing a line.

This is the type of argument from Obama that a lot of Democrats, and not just progressives, have longed to hear. While a united Republican opposition has clearly slowed down his legislative agenda, it has been the conservative Democrats in the Senate who have punctured enormous holes in it.

The White House has largely coddled these four or five Senators, at least in public, in hopes of gradually winning over their support. The White House declined to criticize Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) for holding up health-care reform over a public option --- even while lashing out at former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean when he said the bill should be stopped because it lacked the public plan.

I was on a conference call with Nancy Pelosi Tuesday afternoon, and she was clear: There's not a snowball's chance in hell that the House will vote to pass the Senate health-care bill in its present form.

"Don’t even think of asking us to vote for the Senate bill unless the other bill has passed both houses that will amend it through reconciliation," she said. But she promised several times during the call: "We will get this done."

What the House apparently will vote for is a repeal of the antitrust legislation that exempted the health insurance and malpractice insurers for the past 65 years. She said it will happen next week.

And in case you haven't figured it out yet, the new Democratic mantra is "Jobs, jobs, jobs." Pelosi wove the theme throughout the call.

She talked about job lock ("If you want to leave your job and become a writer or an entrepreneur without worrying about your health insurance, you can do that.")

"Every issue for us has been about jobs. The recovery, the budget, health, education, climate and energy bills – all about the economic well-being of America’s families," she said.

"Healthcare is central because the current system is so unsustainable. It’s not back-burnered," she said. She noted the difference it make "in the economic security of America’s families.

"We have to get this done, we are so very, very close.

She said some senators are calling her, urging her to take the opportunity to put in single payer and the public option. "I have to wonder, is there a market for these things?" she said, noting she didn't think the Senate had the votes for either.

She ended the call with an exhortation.

"It’s a heavy lift," she said. "The other side has endless money, total determination that change will not happen." She said the insurance industries have the "same philosophical backing as the same people who tried to keep Medicare from happening."

"It’s a pretty exciting time. You can’t be discouraged, we have to keep fighting for the American people and our democracy, she said.

"It’s not only about their health, it’s about economic security. We are determined to get that done. If I sound calm, it’s because we will not be deterred from this, we will get it done."

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Unbelievable. Everyone knows the Republicans think we need absolutely no regulation of anything what so ever but they generally don't say it out loud this bluntly. Of course we didn't get any follow up from David Gregory asking him how being smart has anything to do with making insurance companies behave.

Gregory: You don't want government in charge of health care, yet you're a supporter of portable health insurance; the ability to take health insurance across state lines, but I thought the Republicans were states' rights guys and didn't want -- because you'd have to have some kind of Federal regulatory agency to monitor that kind of portability, wouldn't you?

Boehner: No, you wouldn't have to. What we're saying is the American people ought to buy health insurance across state lines. They ought to buy health insurance where they get the policy that they need for themselves and their family at the best price.

Gregory: And there wouldn't have to be some sort of Federal regulatory agency...

Boehner: Well no! That's the whole point. The President said I'm for that but you know there has to be some bureaucrat in Washington that needs to make sure that this is done fairly. The American people are smart enough to do this on their own.

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President Obama walked into the lion's den -- aka the House Republican caucus -- today for a blunt conversation about how to proceed with bipartisanship. Responding to a question from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., he lashed into them for the nutty and outrageous rhetoric so many of them have indulged in the past year:

Obama: Let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the health care package that we've presented ... But at its core, if you look at the basic proposal that we put forward, that has an exchange so that businesses and the self-employed can buy into a pool, and can get bargaining power the same way that big companies do, the insurance reforms that I've already discussed, making sure that there's choice in competition for those that don't have health insurance -- the component parts of this thing are pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year. Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch.

But if you were to listen to the debate -- and frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot! No, I mean, that's how you guys, that's how you guys presented it. And so I'm thinking to myself, 'Well, how is it that a plan that is pretty centrist' -- no, look, I'm just sayin', I know you guys disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans -- it's similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care.

So all I'm saying is, we've got to close the gap between the rhetoric and the reality. I'm not suggesting that we're going to agree on everything, whether it's on health care or energy or what have you. But if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your home base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion, because what you've been telling your constituents is. 'This guy's doin' all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America!'

No doubt he was thinking of, among others, Blackburn herself. Her question to Obama was fairly straightforward and non-nutty, but when she's been out in the public, this is a woman who has defended the notion that the health-care bill contained "death panels," claimed the bill was "sacrificing our children's future," and joined the Tea Partiers in demanding "we want our country back."

But it's not just House Republicans who need to hear this. Some media folks need to be getting this message too.

Putting those of us who are middle-aged out to pasture with Social Security is not such a great solution for the people whose retirement accounts were decimated by the market crash - not to mention, of course, the president's plan to allow a bipartisan commission "suggest" Social Security and Medicare cuts in the near future.

But hey, at least Kucinich is at least trying to do something about jobs -- which is more than you can say for most members of Congress:

CLEVELAND -- An Ohio congressman pushed for a new program to add a million new jobs Monday.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich unveiled his plan Monday afternoon at his Lakewood office.

Kucinich proposed offering early retirement with social security benefits and health insurance subsides to people as young as 60 years old. He said that will free up as many as a million new positions in businesses that have already shed jobs.

"In every business, people are cutting to the point of where they're not functioning the way they used to. So, this gives business a chance to get new blood in. At the same, be able to do it in a way that they don't have to have access more money to do it,” Kucinich said.

Kucinich said he’ll introduce his Kucinich job plan bill this week on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

More info here.

Lost in Tarnation: Talking to your children about Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts. Now, how do we talk to WATB Dems?

Advice Unasked: Hillary Clinton's primary voters went for Brown?

First Draft: What a dick

Rumproast: Good for Cindy McCain

MediaBloodhound: My interview with Health Insurance whistleblower, Wendell Potter

The Sardonic Sideshow: The MSM doesn't exist...not anymore

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(Sam Gibbons - God knows he tried)

When Congressman Sam Gibbons took over the Ways and Means Tax writing Panel from Dan Rostenkowski in June of 1994, he immediately introduced a bill for Universal Healthcare.

Brian Naylor (NPR News): “Florida Democrat Sam Gibbons, now the acting Chairman of the tax writing Ways and Means panel is wasting no time in trying to have an impact on the Healthcare Reform debate. Gibbons has temporarily taken the reigns of the committee from Dan Rostenkowski, w ho was forced to step aside last week after his indictment. Gibbons plan would insure all Americans would have Health Insurance by 1998”.

So naturally the Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich launched an instant attack on the bill, urging it's early death.

From The Boston Globe - June 17, 1994

WASHINGTON -- The House Republican whip, Newt Gingrich, acknowledged yesterday that he has told GOP members of a key committee considering health care reform to do whatever they can to kill the bill.

"My advice to the Ways and Means Republicans is they should do what they think is effective in keeping the Gibbons bill from passing," Gingrich said, referring to legislation offered by the House Ways and Means chairman, Sam M. Gibbons. "It's a bad bill. Why offer amendments to improve it?"

The Party of No rears its historic head . . .yet again!

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From This Week with George Stephanopoulos, a conversation with Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers about the proposed excise tax on "Cadillac plans" to fund the healthcare bill.

As someone who got into the nuts and bolts of union health care plans when I was a reporter, I can tell you there's almost always some lard in there. (I remember one contract that covered a week-long hospital stay for normal childbirth.) The insurance broker is usually politically connected, and the premiums are inflated so the broker can kick back a percentage to the politicians. So theoretically, this tax will put some useful pressure on inflated plans - but create some very unhappy politicians:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Harry Reid, though, the Democratic leader in the Senate said that has to wait until health care is done and the negotiations between the House and Senate have begun this week. The president weighed in with the leaders on behalf of this so-called Cadillac tax, the excise tax on high-priced health insurance plan. That is facing some real resistance in the House. Here's Congressman Joe Sestak.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SESTAK: They're not just pulling the Cadillac. They're pulling the Chevrolets. By 2019, because they index it to a wrong inflation rate, we're going to have one-third of all the workers in employer-based plans paying a middle-class tax. No, this has to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: He and labor leaders like Gerry McEntee say this is going to be a middle-class tax increase that could hit up to 40 percent of union workers.

ROMER: All right, so the -- the important thing the president has said that he thinks that this excise tax on Cadillac plans is important. He's been convinced by experts across the ideological spectrum that say this is one of those things that genuinely slows the growth rate of costs, and anybody that's worried about the budget deficit knows that we've got to -- to do that.

You know, what the president has said is, you know, he's always open to -- you know, there are design issues here. He's going to be continuing to -- to work with the Congress to say, are there ways to -- to make it work better? But we want to maintain that -- that crucial focus on cost containment.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Even if it's a middle-class tax increase?

ROMER: You know, I think that the numbers that you were hearing, you know, that the levels where this is being set -- I think the current number is something like $23,000 for a plan, a family plan -- that's a very high level and -- and exempts an awful lot...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, except union leaders say it's not. They say that at $23,000, it affects 1 in 4 union members. If you raise the threshold to $27,000, it'll be 1 in 14. Are you willing to raise that level?

ROMER: No, you -- you absolutely -- I think you've got to be very careful on the numbers. They're actually, as it's being developed -- they're being, you know, changes made to make sure that, if you've got just older workers and that's why your costs are higher, or things like that, if you're a first-responder, so we've been very receptive to -- to, you know, arguments like that, and, also, the -- you know, sort of the -- the level at which you set.

I think the important thing is the -- you know, the incentives that it provides to genuinely slow the growth rate of costs (ph). If this thing works just right, nobody hits it, right, because -- precisely because it slows the growth rate of costs.
ABC News
(ABC News)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, that's because insurance plans might be dropped, as well. But, still, even with this in there, the Senate bill, your own chief actuary of Medicare and Medicaid says that this is going to increase health care costs by $222 billion over the next 10 years.

ROMER: All right, so you need to be very careful. There are lots of estimates out there. I think, you know, the Congressional Budget Office...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that's your own actuary.

ROMER: The -- the actuary is independent, right, and the Congressional Budget Office is nonpartisan, highly respected organization, as well. They have said that the Senate bill as it came out would genuinely reduce the deficit over the 10-year window and, even more important, said that it would slow the growth rate of costs so that those -- that deficit reduction was going to be growing over time.

So I do think you need to -- to -- to look at the range of estimates. And we, certainly, have looked very hard at the CBO estimates and -- and think they're very reasonable.

Watch the video - it's short, and it sums up why Krugman so often has a fresh perspective on issues, rather than an insular academic bent.

And speaking of, Krugman weighs in on the excise tax question in the healthcare reform bill, asking whether the tax-deductions for employer-provided health insurance should be limited:

The counter-arguments seem to run along three lines.

First, there’s the argument that many “Cadillac” plans aren’t really luxurious — they reflect genuinely high costs. That’s surely true. A flat dollar limit to tax deductibility has real problems. At the very least, the limit should reflect the same factors insurers will be allowed to take into account in setting premiums: age and region.

Second, there’s the argument that any reductions in premiums won’t be passed through into wages. I just don’t buy that. It’s true that the importance of changing premiums in past wage changes has been exaggerated by many people. But I’m enough of a card-carrying economist to believe that there’s a real tradeoff between benefits and wages.

Maybe it will help the plausibility of this case to notice that we’re not actually asking whether a fall in premiums would be passed on to workers. Even with the excise tax, premiums are likely to rise over time — just more slowly than they would have otherwise. So what we’re really asking is whether slowing the growth of premiums would reduce the squeeze rising health costs would otherwise have placed on wages. Surely the answer is yes.

He's right. When you put it that way, it's a lot more plausible.

The last argument is that this hurts unions which have traded off lower wages for better benefits. This would be a bigger issue than I think it is if the excise tax were going to kick in instantly. But it won’t, giving time to renegotiate those bargains. And bear in mind that this kind of renegotiation is exactly what the tax is supposed to accomplish.

A last general point: we really don’t know what it will take to rein in health costs, but that’s a reason to try every plausible idea that experts have proposed. Limiting tax deductibility is definitely one of those ideas.

Bottom line: the details of the excise tax should be fixed, but it’s on balance a good idea.

I'm not getting my hopes up. But it sure would be nice if the House started thinking more about those of us who are hurting instead of their own reelections:

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. House leaders signaled Tuesday they are willing to agree to a final health overhaul bill without a government-run health insurance option if other parts of the bill would fulfill the same goals.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said after meeting with senior House Democrats that the bill must meet the test of "holding insurance companies accountable," whether or not it includes a public option.

"There are other ways to do that, and I look forward to discussing those other ways. ... We will have what we need to hold the insurance companies accountable," Pelosi said.

Pelosi huddled with House committee chairmen as talks between the House and Senate on reconciling competing versions of the health care overhaul bill got underway Tuesday. House leaders are to meet with Senate leaders via teleconference at the White House on Tuesday evening. They are aiming to strike a deal by early February.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), one of Pelosi's top lieutenants, said House leaders will expect concessions from Senate Democrats, including possibly a repeal of the antitrust exemption for insurance companies, if the public option is absent.

"Especially if you were not to have a public option, that would be important," Van Hollen told reporters. "The whole purpose of getting rid of the exemption would be to make sure you police competition so you cannot collude."

And on the more candid side:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi had little to say this afternoon at a press conference following a meeting between House leaders and health care principals. She and other members acknowledged that a number of differences must be resolved between House and Senate bills before a final reform package can be signed in to law--and all are aware that too much tinkering could upset a delicate balance in the Senate, where legislation often must meet a supermajority threshold.

But Pelosi did toss a jab President Obama's way.

Referring explicitly to one of Obama's campaign pledges, a reporter asked Pelosi whether C-SPAN cameras would be allowed to film the House-Senate negotiations.

"There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail," she said, without addressing the question.

Oh, snap!

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As Steve Benen noted this is a better answer than the "I didn't campaign on the public option" nonsense which I thought was silly and insulting. People who've been following the process understand the difference between what you'd like to get passed and what's achievable with this Congress. President Obama said he got 95% of the reform he wanted in the health care bill. Whether you can call this 'reform' or not and whether he actually got what he wanted as opposed to what he campaigned on is something all of us will be debating for some time to come. There are some good things in the bill but I personally don't think they outweigh the bad without some meaningful regulation on the insurance companies.

This type of clarity in the beginning of the debate might have been helpful since we could have been pushing harder for meaningful regulations to keep prices down instead of a public option, but who knows. Maybe the public option was nothing but a shiny object so Joe Lieberman could have his ego stroked and feel like he got his evens with the progressive blogosphere and keep him focused on that instead of him attacking things the administration did actually care about keeping in the bill. Lieberman gets to give the progressive community a kick in the teeth to make him feel better without hurting what they actually cared about having passed in the legislation. It's that or Lieberman gladly played boogie-man to give them exactly what they wanted, or maybe a little of both.

I don’t know of anyone who is satisfied with what’s in this bill so far and no one knows what we’re going to end up with once it comes out of the conference committee. I do know we’re going to keep fighting to fix whatever mess gets heaped upon us and that John is talking to House members to keep the pressure on to try to improve whatever comes out of the committee. Next moves will come after the holidays.

You can watch the entire interview on PBS's site here.

On a personal note, I hope everyone who is celebrating had a wonderful holiday out there. We did ours a bit early because of conflicts with my brothers seeing their families and people going out of town. Everyone dealing with this terrible weather be safe out there and drive carefully.

Transcript below the fold.

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