Barney Frank took the pledge yesterday, so we’ve added him to the list.

Fourteen down, 26 to go. Whip it!

One of the proposals to pay for healthcare reform was to impose an income tax surcharge on families earning more than $350,000. Under pressure from congress, that number has now gone up to $1,000,000 for families and $500,000 for individuals. But does it stand a chance against the conservatives’ anti-tax fantasy?

Having been through the breast cancer mill three times, it’s amusing to hear such a robust defense of the incentive system for pharmaceutical development. It’s like the argument to fund the F-22 based on the value of commercial applications for the neat-o wing coatings that were developed. If that’s what we ultimately want, we should find a way to do that, and not prop up some Rube Goldberg model.

Ezra Klein says the public option is much less important to than fixing the horrors of the private health insurance system. Does he really not see the connection?

76% of the country wants a public plan, Landrieu doesn’t. Center of what — her own ego?

News that Senator Max Baucus’ Finance Committee deal on health care excluded a public option sent health insurance stocks soaring on Tuesday. Executives who have poured money into the campaign coffers of Blue Dogs, Max Baucus, Chuck Grassley, Kent Conrad, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins as well as their PACs likely made all their money back just in the one day rise in stock prices after the leak.

It’s like they control the Senate as well.

The Senate Finance negotiations have zeroed in on a plan that would use non-profit cooperatives to compete with private insurers to drive down costs, members say, not the public plan favoured by Obama and many Democrats.

The panel also is likely to back a tax on high-cost insurance policies to try to raise revenue and keep costs down.The White House said it would wait until

Growing older and whiter, good plan GOP.

Grand Funk Railroad – Inside Looking Out (live 1969).

What’s on your mind?

The matter of Barack Obama’s place of birth has been settled in a measure which passed honoring Hawaii’s 50 years of statehood. Granted Well, okay it was settled long before yesterday, but wow, there are some nuts out there.

And just for the heck of it, let’s not forget the excitement over who was really Trigg’s mom…