The House-Senate informal conference “committee” begins tomorrow. Jane focuses on the potential health care votes of John Salazer and Jan Schakowsky. We need standardized high-quality low cost sharing insurance in this country. Just like the health care system in Hawaii, which Rush Limbaugh loves. This is how I would build the best possible final health reform [...]

Here is a great graph (via Andrew Gelman) from National Geographic showing just how broken our health care system is. As you can see, our health care costs are literally off the charts. We spend far more on health care than any other country, utilize health services less, and are not healthier as a result of [...]

If I magically had the power to build the best bill possible in conference out of only components from the House and Senate bills, this is what I would do. (Of course there might not even be a conference committee and any bill can still be filibustered by Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, etc., [...]

We are one year away from when the 112th Congress will be sworn in, and that is why I’m beginning a countdown to full Congressional shutdown. When Democrats lose their 60-vote super-majority in the Senate, our entire Congress will effectively stop working altogether. All indications point to this year being a good election for Republicans. [...]

Maybe Salazar is counting on those “independents” to show up for him in 2010.

Salazar office phones: 970-245-710, 719-543-8200, 970-259-1012, 719-587-5105. If you hear anything, let us know in the war room.

There is no better proof that the Senate bill is a massive giveaway to the health care industry than the radically different enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate and the new insurance regulations. This Senate bill will force you to buy insurance from only private insurance companies. It will use the power of the federal [...]

Schakowsky’s office numbers are (773) 506-7100, (847) 328-3409, and (202) 225-2111. If you hear anything, let us know in the war room.

Looking around the world, the evidence points to a good way to reduce health care costs is to provide everyone with a single, standardized, high-quality, low-cost-sharing insurance package. Unfortunately, health insurance reform will not follow the solution indicated by ample real world evidence. The Senate bill will allow significant plan design flexibility, and the sale [...]

I spent my morning on MSNBC talking about right/left opposition to the mandate. What about you?