As much as these candidates would like you believe that their healthcare proposals will fix the health insurance market, they will not.

Don't believe me?  Go look at health insurance in Washington State.  The health insurance market here is fairly similar to both Edwards and Obama's proposals, yet health insurance premiums and the number of uninsureds in the state are close to the national average.

Believe it or not, Washingtonians have universal access to health insurance RIGHT NOW and have had so for a number of years.

I wrote this over at dailykos a few days ago, but I thought it might be pertinent to the conversation going on today concerning Obama's health insurance proposal.  Like many of the other patchwork health insurance fixes (a la Edwards), the plan does little to address the issue of numerous pools of insureds, which leads to schisms in the market where healthy people go one place and unhealthy ones go to another, (broken up by other demographic groups such as age (Medicare, CHIPs) or income (Medicaid).

A common refrain around these parts is that the transition for a single payer wouldn't be able to happen anytime soon.  I take issue with this assertion and thus have drafted a quick stream of consciousness for what these executive candidate summaries should look like.

Single Payer Healthcare IS NOT meant to socialized medicine.  The government provides the funds, but not the healthcare - that is left up to the market itself.  I suppose that I may be in the minority of single payer proponents; I trust that the market can still be used to serve a socially redeemable purpose, as long as it's subjected to a healthy dose of regulation and oversight.  

Whenever the issue of single payer healthcare arises, people seem to be concerned that either it will limit their access to healthcare or that the transition would be too convoluted to effectively implement, (mainly because the existence of insurance carriers provides a major roadblock to change).  The prospect of eliminating an entire industry is much easier to imagine in theory than it would be to realize in practice.

Follow me below the fold for details of my plan...

(Full disclosure - as a health insurance broker, over the past 4 plus years I've watched the patchwork of federal and state programs attempt to interact with the private market with disastrous results.  FWIW, I'm open to either a single payer system with not-for-profit insurance companies or Medicare for all with or without a buy-up option.)

Tax credits to businesses, purchasing pools, funding state CHIPs and Medicaid programs, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

(crossposted at dailykos)

During the first week of January on every odd numbered year, congressmen and women convene to open a new session of congress.  Each newly elected member is sworn in prior to taking office with a simple yet binding oath of service:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God. (emphasis added)

The duties of our United States congress members are many and the responsibilities are severe.  Senators and representatives that run for president while concurrently serving terms in office have to perform two full time jobs at once, which incidentally could be why so few sitting members win successful bids for the presidency.

(crossposted at dailykos)

The 2006-midterm elections presented Democrats with a historic opportunity to strengthen the party brand and retake control of both houses of congress.  Party members of all stripes helped secure an election day capped with record setting victories through the nation.  

Although Howard Dean's 50-state strategy emphasizes long run party building over the short term electoral gains, its immediate success was vitally important not only to Americans hoping to derail the Bush agenda, but also to Democratic people powered movements in general.  Would grassroots level party building strengthen the brand or would it be wasted on people picking their noses in "red America"?