cabo,

Excuse me. You're right. The answer about health insurance for congressmen did not immediately follow when the President "babbled" about his doctor shadowing him. He gave the answer to the same question a few seconds before that. Here are the relevant words:

"...the insurance regulation that we want to put in place will largely match up with what members of Congress are getting through the federal employee plan. That's a good example of what we're trying to build for the American people, the same thing that Congress enjoys, which is they go, there's a marketplace of different plans that they can access depending on what's best for their families."

As I said earlier, I think this is more than symbolic and I strongly favor the President's emphasis on pushing for the same basic plan for everyone. You and I both know that congressmen and other wealthy or influential people will always able to get better health CARE than average or poor folks, but it's a good start if everyone has the the same halfway decent INSURANCE plan.

I'm not dodging the issues. I already told you i favor the President's formula for funding the plan. Who can argue with no deficit increase and reallocating existing health care funding. The thing that's debatable is the final 1/3 of the cost. Congressmen are wetting their pants at the thought of having to tax the rich to raise those funds. I've said I can't think of anything more fair. (I could talk for hours about rich/poor and what I really think America stands for.) So what do you think of that solution? You likely spend a lot more time on this than I. Have you seen better ways of funding that 1/3, or compelling reasons why it's wrong to have people with million dollar annual incomes shoulder those costs?

I also like some of your points at the end of your last post. Tort reform is critical, but I think it is purposely being left out of the fundamentals of the President's proposal, not because he is trying to protect the interests of attorneys, but because it's inclusion might bring down the whole effort. Change is incremental and requires patience and resolve. I believe we will not see any significant change in the health care crisis without the unrelenting exercise of influence by the President.

As for as other details of the plan, like my congressmen, I haven't read the 1000 page document. But each of the elements of the outline I've seen or heard the President describe makes sense to me.