Why do you think anything insurance-focused would get insurance costs for a healthy 55-year-old to go down? That’s backward to the whole nature of this reform, which is to equalize costs across insureds–so insurance costs go down for the sick and up for the healthy. If you think of it as COBRA-for-all, which I think is reasonable, $500/month is about right (and rough GDP estimates get to the same ballpark); with some age rating, I’d be extremely surprised if rates for healthy 55-year-olds go down from $800.

Meanwhile in the real world Tim Geithner is lobbying to keep derivatives from being regulated in Europe.

Compared to some (modern?) Republicans, Nixon looks like a progressive but I’m fairly certain that does not make him one.

And as for you, “obsessed,” you need to practice distinguishing friends from enemies. Given the filibuster rule, passing health care reform is hard; that’s the reason previous wimpy sellouts from Teddy Roosevelt through FDR, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson failed to get it done. Obama has gotten closer than anyone ever has, and may yet push the thing across the goal line. I sympathize with your situation, but would you rather have your problem fixed in 2014, or never? Because those are your choices. And the idea that if all the progressives get together and throw rocks at the progressive leader that will encourage progressive change is, if you’ll pardon me, pretty damned dumb.

Also, seeing Barry go bold makes me jealous. I wanted to italicize charitable, but there are no posted instructions regarding HTML tag usage at this location.

Meanwhile, the relevant committees in congress are doing their best to limit reform of financial industry regulations so as to impact their owners’ bottom lines as little as possible. Yaay Democrats!

Until proven otherwise…

The problem is, to get to reconciliation, you have to first eat the shit sandwich. So it’s more like a whipped cream and cherries desert you have to trust the waiter to deliver after you’ve choked down the sandwich. There’s nothing to stop the Senate, so I understand, from just aborting reconciliation after the House votes through the Senate bill. Fear of exactly that happening is inspiring all sorts of novel, and blatantly unconstitutional proposals to reverse the process. The Slaughter proposal being the most absurd to date. I know the enrolled bill doctrine exists, but I’ve got doubts the courts would extend it to a case where the House never even held a vote on the bill in question.

Here’s an idea: If it’s such a great idea, pass it as a stand alone bill, rather than tacking it onto a completely unrelated ginormous piece of unpopular legislation.