That is the point, isn't it?

bluegal at C&L found this video. She said: The CBC covers this new phenomenon known as "the internet" in 1993. Wow. Just wow.


Josh Marshall (TPM): Get ReWrite

Following the lead of this post by Jon Taplin, you really must read this article in the Times on the battle over including a 'public option' in the new Obama health care reform bill. If you're not familiar with the lingo of this debate, the 'public option' refers to allowing the federal government to sell its own insurance plan which would compete with private health insurance providers. Think of it as a version of Medicare that everyone could buy into.

Here's the key graf from the Times piece ...

But critics argue that with low administrative costs and no need to produce profits, a public plan will start with an unfair pricing advantage. They say that if a public plan is allowed to pay doctors and hospitals at levels comparable to Medicare's, which are substantially below commercial insurance rates, it could set premiums so low it would quickly consume the market.

As Taplin suggests, these 'problems' sound remarkably like 'the point' of the whole exercise. Most of the argument here is that a big government plan would just provide the insurance 'service' much more efficiently and cheaply than private carriers. And that the private carriers wouldn't be able to make any money off selling the service any more. But this is the argument that single payer advocates routinely make -- namely, that a lot of the money that goes into private health insurance goes to paperwork, much of which is tied to finding ways to deny people coverage. That, and the need to earn profits on providing the service.

Presumably if there were other quality advantages to the private plans, the carriers wouldn't be so worried that everyone would switch to the public plan. I think I might be open to some effective scare-mongering on that front. But the private carriers don't seem to have much confidence there's much to scare people about.

C&L: Matt Dowd Thinks It's a "Huge Problem" That the GOP Isn't Getting Its Ideas Out to the Public

Heather Sunday Jun 07, 2009 6:26pm

While discussing the number of Republicans that President Obama has brought into his administration, Matt Dowd claims that the Republicans falling apart means that they have not had a chance to get their message out.

Dowd: I agree it's a smart move. I also think it has a much bigger, profound effect. As the Republicans are in disarray and they can't seem to settle on any leader, any issue, are becoming a minority party in this country, really and truly a minority party at this time, that is not what the American politics needs.

We need two vibrant political parties that are able to present competing visions and then fight it out over with the American public. Right now we have one vibrant party that is very strong and one party that is in total disarray as I say, and so there's not this conflict of ideas that is able for the American public so sort of see out there so they can pick and choose from it. That's a huge problem.

Apparently Mr. Dowd doesn't watch much American television if he thinks the Republicans have not had more than a sufficient chance to get their ideas out to the public.

Dowd also lets one slip about what George Bush thought of listening to competing ideas:

Dowd: I think it does help demonstrate that Barack Obama's interested in diversity of opinion within the decision making process, which was a huge problem, and a perception that people had of George W. Bush. He had no interest, people thought he had no interest in getting diversity of opinion. At least Barack Obama by doing this is demonstrating that he wants it.

I think Dowd was being honest before he corrected himself.