From the NYT: “As President Obama’s effort to overhaul the health care system seems to hit one roadblock after another in Congress, he is counting on Senator Max Baucus, a political shape-shifter and crafty deal maker who is not fully trusted by either party, to help him clinch his top domestic priority”

If government insurance is nothing but long lines and bureaucrats standing between people and their doctors, then nobody will use it and private insurance companies have nothing to fear.

Get your story straight, wingnuts.

Former insurance industry insider, Wendell Potter, is set to testify tomorrow before the full Senate Commerce Commitee. Mr. Potter served for more than two decades as a public relations executive for CIGNA and Humana. He left the industry because he felt industry practices were harming American health care consumers.

We heard this a lot from House offices during the supplemental battle. Having a public list was extremely powerful, and gave people a whole lot less wiggle room. Getting early commitments on record makes it much harder for those with considerable expertise at tipping things in their favor at the last minute — in this case, industry lobbyists — to work their magic.

Ryan Grim over at Huffington Post has an interview with Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) that offers a glimpse of the terrain that lay ahead in the health care battle.

A new poll indicates that 76% of Americans overwhelmingly support having a public health care option, but the influence of lobbying money on Congress is making that hope seem remote.

It’s time to change that.  Let’s whip for a public plan.

To the phones!

How can an entity that only operates in Minnesota negotiate successfully to control costs with Merck? For a public plan to have the market leverage and bargaining power that it needs, it has to be administered at the federal level. You’re never going to force the insurance companies to compete if there isn’t a national standard . Small regional coops run by their members that spring up at different times aren’t going to be able to compete successfully with giant national corporations. It’s like asking your local food coop to compete on price with WalMart.

Bingaman needs to clarify.

Aravosis reports there was a White House conference call with members of the DNC’s gay caucus today in which one of them asked the White House Deputy Chief of staff and political director “What are we going to do about the blogs?”

I’d say the blogs are the least of their problems at this point.

77 Members of Congress, writing to President Barack Obama, have asked that he direct the Defense Department to stop implementation and execution of orders under Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell while Congress begins efforts to actually repeal the law underlying the policy. The Palm Center agrees that the President has this power and can move unilaterally.

McConnell voted for TARP. It appears that after 24 years in the Senate, he’s just learned this lesson in the past few weeks.