I hope against hope that Obama will make the case that our economy is being strangled by the failure to get every American insured with a rational system. Job lock, employers afraid to hire new employees, fear of total financial destruction shredding confidence in the future, the basic underpinning of a strong economy, etc. It's not just about decency -- these are not particularly decent times -- it's about the health of the whole economy and the whole society. 50 million uninsured Americans, and another 100 million or so fearing an unexpected pink slip could put them in the same precarious position, is a tremendous drag on the whole country. Too often Democrats assume most Americans just understand that. They do and they don't: they need to be reminded against the onslaught the Republicans will launch. The economic implications of this issue are huge.

Huh, if you do your best to kick more Americans down into poverty, you can turn around and claim - truthfully! - that you're reduced the number of uninsured, because now they qualify for Medicaid.

I would never have thought of this "benefit" due to Bush's administration.

And make the case with trumpets blaring. Obama should take a significant portion of his speech talking about WHY solving the healthcare crisis is critical to our future. As part of this, he should issue in front of the entire nation an unmistakable demand that the national press accurately explain to the American people the fundamental differences between the Republican Party and the Democrats on healthcare.

How did I know Ezra would try to spin this into bad news. Are there or are there not more people insured now? Why can't you for once show a shred of intellectual honesty and admit that this is good news?

AB, you're right. At this rate, if only a few 10s of millions of more people fall into abject poverty, they can qualify for Medicaid, and we'll have universal coverage!

"AB, you're right. At this rate, if only a few 10s of millions of more people fall into abject poverty, they can qualify for Medicaid, and we'll have universal coverage!"

But, of course, given how Medicaid depends on state funding, in a more generalized economic downturn, the safety net will shrink, not grow.

"or we can actually, you know, fix it."

But we had a chance to fix it. That chance was called the "2008 Democratic Primaries".

And when we had a chance to fix it, Ezra stood with General Electric instead of with universal healthcare.

When push comes to shove, what matters for Ezra is Ezra's career, not enacting progressive policy into law.

We can keep playing defense, watching the system unravel even in times of economic expansion and desperately trying to help the displaced, or we can actually, you know, fix it.

Oh, that's all we need to do. You know, fix it.

There are problems in every healthcare system. Britain has a slew of problems with their national healthcare system, Canada has issues--if, you know, you want an MRI. Or a PET scan. And so on. And that doesn't even count the potential problems they'll have with future drug therapies, if the U.S. ends up price-capping drugs and putting pharmaceutical companies out of the R&D biz, there'll be no one to subsidize their cheap drugs in Canada anymore.

If by "fix it", you mean establish tax-payer funded universal healthcare, I suppose that's possible. Would Hillary Care, with its many madates and micro-management of the entire healthcare profession, from education to practice, have "fixed" it?

The reality is, there are problems in any system, and there will be delays, folks falling through the cracks, people not getting needed care or turned away for arbitrary reasons under a government system, just like they are now. The difference is, the American taxpayers will be paying a lot more (and will be asked to be paid more--guarantee you, like Medicare and Social Security, there will always be periodic crisis that require a fresh "investment" from the American tax payer), fraud will be worse (certainly how it turned out with Tennessee's supplemental TennCare program) and nobody will be accountable for anything, and people will still get sick and die.

But . . . we'll get to say that "everybody is insured". So, the practical health problems don't change, or change into different problems, or everything gets worse, but that's not the point. The point is "everyone is insured". Done. Fixed. Joy!

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine. It's on YouTube. Use the Google. Find it. Worth a listen.

Tyro, you might have a point if it weren't for the fact that the increase in the amount of insured people was not just among people in poverty or in the lower income brackets. You can try to spin this all you want, the fact remains that more people are insured.

Two things. First regarding the shift of people from private to public insurance. Isn't this kind of what we would expect to see as the leading wave of the baby boomers start retiring and joining Medicare? It seems like since they are such an outsized generation it could skew the numbers. Just a thought, I haven't looked at the actual data.

My second thought is in response to "Britain has a slew of problems with their national healthcare system, Canada has issues--if, you know, you want an MRI. Or a PET scan. "

Why does everyone always use Britain and Canada as their examples of the problems with universal healthcare? Why don't I here about all the problems in France, or Germany, or Finland? I sense some cherry picking of examples on the part of the opponents of universal health care.