" And the caving in continues. Paul Krugman writes today:

Some health care reformers wanted the Democrats to endorse a single-payer, Medicare-type system for all. On the sheer economic merits, they're right: single-payer would be more efficient than a system that preserves a role for private insurance companies.

  " In other words, if you are a conservative and you are looking just at the numbers, single-payer is the only way to go. And, then, he caves in:

But it's better to have an imperfect universal health care plan than none at all ”and the only way to get a universal health care plan passed soon is to inoculate it against Harry-and-Louise-type claims that people will be forced into plans" designed by government bureaucrats. So the Democratic platform emphasizes choice, declaring that Americans "should have the option of keeping the coverage they have or choosing from a wide array of health insurance plans, including many private health insurance options and a public plan." We'll see if that's enough.

  " If we want to health care system we deserve, then, yes, it won't be handed to us. We will have to fight. And the scum and leeches in the insurance industry--including the CEOs who make millions of dollars--are going to hold on to the last fightinb breathe to their little kingdoms even if it means your mother or aunt or friend dies from inadequate care or is driven into bankruptcy because they can't afford coverage. These people are organized crime dressed up in nice suites (sic) working in corporate suites."

I'll just add this: If the current system is so great that the Democratic Party won't fight for single payer, HR 676, health care for all, and will only work for Band-Aid solutions like the amorphous, euphemistic  "affordable health care" then level the playing field for everyone and eliminate government health care coverage for all federal employees, (that includes members of Congress like John McSame who has been covered all his life by government health care, the president, vice president, etc.), the military and their families, and let them struggle like the rest of Americans do with for profit, private health care coverage.