NP: Genesis, Selling England By The Pound

So, what would an actual meaningful debate about health care reform look like? Steve Benen flags a couple of particularly insightful pieces that address the notion of rationing, and while they're nominally in response to something Charles Krauthammer said, I don't really expect Krauthammer to address the points raised in any substantive manner. But it's nice to dream.

And while former Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole hews to a couple of right-wing talking points like scuttling the public option, I think there's some value to his notion of clearing the decks and essentially starting over with a White House bill. Why? Because it allows him to dismiss all the inanity of the last couple of months as a mere prelude -- now that Congress has gotten all of the bullshit out of its system, let's actually get down to business. And since the White House has already designated Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post as a "must-read" columnist on the subject, why not ride in with what Benen called the "Pearlstein Plan" last week. And, to be fair, that doesn't include a public option, either. Benen doesn't think the right will play nice one way or the other, but if Obama were to offer a reasonable plan that's substantively different from what Congress has come up with, it could expose the Republican intransigence for what it is. At least it would if anyone got their news straight up and without bias.

I was actually thinking of visiting Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's forum today up in Skokie in order to ask some questions that might get me on TV, but I probably won't. The aforementioned "Pearlstein Plan" would be worth bringing up, but the one that I wonder about quite a bit is whether or not the government has any idea just how popular public insurance might be, and if they're prepared for a "Cash for Clunkers" like response. This isn't intended as (a) a softball question saying "wow, wouldn't the public option be great" or (b) a way to say that the government didn't get the CARS program right, so we shouldn't trust them with health insurance. It's just that I want to know that they've gamed this thing out in all possible directions.