Per the importance of using the correct word, Mark Twain made the following observation:

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
- Mark Twain Letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888

The health care reform win certainly wouldn't hurt Obama's chances in 2012, but in reality it'll all come down to whats happening from Aug - Oct 2012.

Hope the economy doesn't tank by then.

I'm a retired federal worker, finishing a 27-year career supporting the US Army as an Acquisition Logistics specialist.

My job was to oversee contractor efforts (the last being Boeing -- hired to execute a program in behalf of the government just after GW Bush invaded Iraq and sent money to Army modernization efforts).

In that job, I oversaw contracted effort where the government bought services from Boeing at $400,000 per person per year, watching eighty alleged logisticians (actually retired soldiers ranging in rank from sergeant through 3-star generals) perform work which my six person staff could have done more efficiently. In the end the six did the planning and scheduling that the 80-some persons couldn't accomplish in seven years.

The traditional cost plus overhead for persons working at a contractor is 50-50, meaning we were paying Boeing $200,000 in salary and $200,000 in overhead for each person working the program.

There were few cases where I encountered contracted persons who I could engage in a meaningful discussion of planning to execute a complicated logistics program. At the end of the program I earned $126,000 for the year (plus 11-percent overhead for retirement and government share of health benefits).

The skill set Boeing provided me ranged from two levels below me to three above. One of the maybe 200 Boeing personnel I encountered over seven years could have passed the job interview I conducted to hire those on my staff.

If libertarians are attempting to lower government salaries, it has to be to allow this type of abuse to be expanded in the private sector.

FDR saved capitalism from itself in the 30's.

The elite just don't seem to understand, at a certain point a person without hope acts desperately and irrationally. Its just not good to have a society filled with the hopeless.

Heck even Bismark, the Iron Chancellor, the man who was forced to resign by Kaiser Wilhelm II because he felt him to conservative, even he supported workers compensation, health care and social security. (Of course it was because he understood that it would placate the masses instead of agitate them).

Gainor = DOUCHE Grinch/Scrooge to ALL.

The fed pay rate is 75% of where private pay rate would be if not artificially suppressed by free trade anti-regulatory horseshit.

HEY! Let’s strap up and race to the bottom . . .

A very Happy Yule to you and yours Thom! =)

Brightest Blessings!

Perhaps that what Obama meant when he said "Make me do it."

Are the Democrats really ready to face the onslaught of advertising coming from the Health Insurance companies?

Ich denk nicht!

Thom...it ain't going to happen! First, I do not believe that top progressives, even like Sen. Sanders, are going to go against (or will be allowed to go against) the 'rest' of the democratic party in an election year.
I actually think the bill will pass the house without any changes to it and that will actually get it thru to the president (if I understand the process correctly).
If this issue is forced to go to reconcilliation (highly unlikely) even then I do not believe the majority of democrats will openly go against the president (who looks to be in control of Rahm Emanuel and other 'corporatists) and get a 'medicare for all' option (which might be the only possible option thru this process). So the bill might as well die at that point and the democrats will suffer heavily in the subsequent couple of election cycles.

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia

President Obama: "I didn't campaign on the public option." http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/12/22/obama_public/index.html

You see, it all depends on what your definition of the word "campaign" is.

My definition would be the part where it says: "Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice." http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/

On Monday Thom mentioned the level of education equality in Wisconsin being among the highest in the country. Wisconsin, ground-zero for the popularly-supported progressive and socialist movements in the late 19th and early 20th century, did not shy from instituting relatively high state taxes to pay for progressive social policies. Some of this money was used to pay for one of the best public university systems in the country; the University of Wisconsin has thirteen fully-functional four-year university branches, and an equal number of two-year branches, serving more than 160,000 students.

Compare this to the state of Washington, which has no progressive state income tax, but an antiquated property tax and a regressive sales tax--and still has a backwater mentality in certain places. Washington has a population roughly equal to Wisconsin, yet the University of Washington system has only two tiny branches that offer only a very limited curriculum, in all serving less than 40,000 students. Its main campus in Seattle is less than half the size of the Madison campus. Although there is a handful of four-year institutions outside the public system, in toto Washington not just serves far fewer students, but far fewer students from its own backyard. The percent of UW’s student population that is made-up of foreign students—particularly from the Pacific Rim—would rather shock most residents if they bothered to be aware of it. One caveat, however, to the lower drop-out rate in Wisconsin: it has a lower percentage of minority students as well, mostly concentrated in the southeastern portion of the state. The number of minority students in a 1,000 student high school I attended in a town midway between Milwaukee and Madison could be counted on one hand.