Paul Krugman, The New York Times, February 4, 2008 The principal policy division between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama involves health care. It's a division that can seem technical and obscure — and I've read many assertions that only the most wonkish care about the fine print of their proposals. But as I've tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a big difference between the candidates' approaches. And new research, just released, confirms what I've been saying: the difference between the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal health coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short. Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton's would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling Mr. Obama's — at only slightly higher cost. Let's talk about how the plans compare. Both plans require that private insurers offer policies to everyone, regardless of medical history. Both also allow people to buy into government-offered insurance instead. Read More Here

BartCop.com Volume 2110 - Benedict McCain In Today's Tequila Treehouse...

	Super Tuesday Math
	Obama's Underpants
	Nuke-yu-ler Obama?
	Those Racist Clintons
	Careful, Eugene
	Exxon wins Lottery
	Why I Hate Hillary
	Stop bagging Hillary
	Rachel Bilson as WW

Where Government is Tiny and Everything is Privatized… "Hello, Road Emergency Response Corporation. How may I help you today?" "Hi, my name is Valentine Michael Smith, account 2008GOP, and I'm trapped in my car…" "Yes, Mr. Smith, one second … Okay, I have your location right up on my screen from your OnStar GPS locator unit. You're off the road on Route 29 near the Route 230 underpass." "That's right. I skidded off the road and the car's upside down. My wife and I are trapped and the car top is crushed. I think I may have some serious injuries; I'm numb from the neck down and my wife is unconscious. Could you send someone immediately to get us out?" "Certainly, sir. Sounds like you need the Jaws of Life pronto. Do you have a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Premium account with us?" "Bronze, it's all I could afford." "Ah, I see. With our discount Bronze account, you have a $500.00 deductible for any emergency response service. Do you have a credit card handy?" "What? I'm paralyzed from the neck down and trapped in my seat – I can't get out my wallet!" "That's unfortunate, sir, as we need to have your $500.00 deductible payment registered before we can send help. It's all in your Bronze contract." "Look, I'll tell you my bank's name and they can verify I have the money in my accou –" "Sorry, sir, only a valid credit card will be accepted." "But -- this is crazy! It's inhuman!" "Perhaps you can call around and find a friend with a valid credit card who will make the payment for you and then call us back." "Call around? I had to hit the emergency button on the cell phone with my tongue just to call you!" "That's unfortunate, sir, but my hands are tied -- we just can't make exceptions. Corporate policy and all that. I hope you free yourself from your predicament, and have a nice day!" (Click.)

Dear R.S. I want to take issue with you about something you said several days ago in a post. You gave out an amazing list of ideas that would help the country. That was good, far better than I'm used to. But one of them was to raise taxes on corporations. The idea is, of course, that if corporations pay more, the govt will have more and America will be better off. Sounds sweet, but not true. In reality, corporations don't pay taxes. This is exactly like prices appearing to go up when the fact is that the worth of the dollar is going down (inflation). What happens is that the corporations add on the taxes "paid" as an expense of doing business, thereby raising the price of their product to cover the additional cost. They only pay the taxes on paper. In reality the cost is moved down the chain, trickled down so to speak, to the consumer. An increase in corporate taxes will cause increased prices, or poorer product quality. Please get over this warm fuzzy idea that the evil corporations must be taxed more to punish them. You are too smart for such indulgences. Grimmy