I'm not surprised Ron doesn't want to come home during the August recess. I can't get his office to tell me where the town hall meetings will be so we can come and ask questions. Perhaps now that they don't play to cancel the recess, the staff will put up the dates and locations so he can face the public and our concerns. Any insight on town hall meetings you might have, Kari, is appreciated. I'm on topic with my comment, because I want to attend a meeting to ask Wyden about what he thinks Great Grandma Dina would have thought about his health care plan. He crashed her 100th birthday party at a church early in his career for a photo op.

Thanks, Ron. Now will you please call out Harry Reid and tell him to find some spine or please resign! This group of Senate Dems are disgusting! They would win a ton of good will and credibility by insisting on giving up their Aug. vacation and doing some honest work for the American people. The Dem. party is the obstruction to Health Care, not the Republicans. It's time to call for a blackout of all political donations to Democrats until a reasonable bill gets passed, and to disallow funding for their public option health care (paid for by American tax payers) if it doesn't.

If Wyden isn't afraid to go on a national show with Mr. Public Option Ed Schultz, I doubt he is afraid of facing us, backbeat.

Let's give some love when he does something right. He's right. Stay at it until you get it left, Ron. A full and robust public option, cut national health costs, and regulate the insurance companies into something not entirely evil. Then come home and we will throw you a parade.

Ron Wyden may have positioned himself to be a hero. I hope he can pull it off.

This sounds like more double speak from Wyden. Earlier this week he signed a letter with Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman calling for additional time to create a bipartisan bill:

the letter

And, his free choice proposal does not have a public option. Now he is willing to cancel the recess and claims a public option doesn't go far enough? I think he means to say it doesn't go far enough across the isle.

Leaving Washington now means losing what momentum and motivation there is to work out the disagreements on this critical issue. I am proud of Sen. Wyden for hunkering down and fighting for some common ground on this issue even when it is so divisive. Our current system of inequity and inconsistency is simply not sustainable for a healthy populace or economy. Thanks, Ron, for sticking to the task - no matter how long it takes!

He is getting support from "Democrats on both sides of the aisle?" WTF is that? And what exactly is behind "the public option doesn't go far enough?" Does that mean it is not in bed with private insurers enough? Given Wyden's track record on this issue, I hesitate to anoint him as "Mr. Public Option Champion." That is ludicrous.

@Dave Porter who wants to get organized labor to drop its opposition to taxing health benefits . . . Restore the 20% wage increases that were bargained away for those health benefits. Restore control of the shop floor that was bargained away for those policies. Repeal Taft Hartley. Then we'll talk.

The Wyden letter was last week and I don't see the disconnect between asking for more time for a bipartisan bill and calling for August recess to be delayed until progress is made. Makes a lot of sense to me. As long as Obama insists and wins on a public option, I'm not too worried about Wyden. I think he's just pushing for the best deal he can get on his issues. If Obama holds the line successfully on public option and Wyden succeeds on his choice proposal and everybody in the country gets to choose the public option, forget the Wyden parade. We will put his face on the White Stag sign, carve it onto Haystack Rock, and tattoo it on every arm in NoPo.

Do any of these guys do anything that is "truly" best for the country or is it all politically motivated, IE: Wanting to get re-elected?

@ Patch

No, I mean a real hero in bringing a health care entitlement into being. The Dem. party and its leadership are largely gutless and cowed by the right, frightened of telling the American people about the costs of doing this, and the necessary adjustments we will need to make, so this thing is hanging by a thread.

If Wyden and his "choice" plan can inject new life into this effort and cross the finish line, he will be an authentic hero of this party and this nation. Right now this party is in shambles, and running home with their tail between their legs. Much of the blogosphere is now endorsing a boycott of political donations to the DSCC, DCCC, and DNC, as well as other candidate groups. That does not bode well as the party is set to commit a massive historic failure, and betrayal to its supporters, when it should be positioned to make an historic policy success of universal health care. (almost)

The gains of the last election are about to be reversed, and the party is set to lose yet another entire generation of young voters, many of whom have no health care coverage. A pox on this party if they fail these young people! These are young people who are required to pay for my health care as I approach medicare age, required to pay for Ron Wyden's health care, the military's health care, and govt. employees, but get nothing for themselves.

Backbeat, about this:

"Perhaps now that they don't play to cancel the recess, the staff will put up the dates and locations so he can face the public and our concerns."

Have you called the DC office, or just the local office? If you haven't called the DC office, I suggest you do so. Ask them if there is yet a town hall means it possible that until they know what dates will be available they aren't scheduling a town hall meeting?

I have never seen Ron shy away from answering questions. But between health care, the Intelligence Comm., and holding down the seat on Judiciary until Franken was sworn in, he is a busy guy.

But then, I don't believe there is something wrong with someone whose views are different than mine. I saw there was an NPR story saying health care changes could take time.

Oh, and Bill R, "Much of the blogosphere is now endorsing a boycott of political donations to the DSCC, DCCC, and DNC, as well as other candidate groups".

I make donations directly to candidates, not to groups like that. Makes more sense--one knows exactly where the money is going, and it shows up on an FEC report (or C&E) as an individual contribution, rather than from a group.

I'd like to see Wyden at al. push for some serious reforms such as stopping government support of letting the AMA limit the number of physicians which they've been doing for many decades. The AMA/Gov't partnership has not been good for the general welfare. But that's a good idea, so they won't do anything about this.

Bob Tiernan Portland

As a conservative I hope (and now believe) that this push for national health care will fail. It will fail primarily because it is being advanced with falsehoods and deceit which are becoming apparent to a majority of Americans and public officials.

All the aggression the hard left can muster will be no match for the truth.

Thanks Richard for the incisive, fact laden commentary.

Richard, if a person donates a kidney and then is refused insurance because that is called a "pre-existing condition", is that OK because an insurance company is doing it and no one has a right to complain?

Do you think ERs should be full of people who have no insurance and have a medical emergency?

Are you saying "the market" solves all problems?

Oh the old ER bromide, and the federal health care is going to fixi it???

I have a better question for ya'll. Will all of the public employee unions give up their health care for this new wonder care?

Like I said the BS pushing this fantasy that the monster federal goverment will fix health care will doom it to never being adopted. Not enough Americans, doctors and politicians are that naive. As the left stomps it's feet and screams "we want it" the rest of adult America will not be moved.

from someone else

"This is very interesting (distressing). It's from the actual HC bill that Obama is trying to ram through.

You've all heard it in the news, Obama's Health Care "reform". So what all is in this bill? I feel that it is important to look into this, since not even the President himself knows what all is in it. (proven by his lack of knowledge in recent interviews)

Here's a summary of the bill and a link to the full text: http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf (this is lengthy, if you cannot get through all of it, at least skip down to the bottom and read lines 429, 430 that discuss end of life scenarios) Trust me, just reading a few lines enough will make you want to reach out and choke the nearest govt official!

Page 22 of the HC Bill: Mandates that the Govt will audit books of all employers that self insure!!

Page 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.

Page 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill: YOUR HEALTH CARE IS RATIONED!!!

Backbeat's comments imply that Wyden is avoiding tough questions about his health care plan. At town hall meeting in the past (as well as a City Club visit), he has demonstrated a mastery of the cost, coverage, and quality issues around health, and I am confident he would do that with any questions that anyone on blueoregon.com will have. Those obsessed about the public option (including Obama himself), think that's the key to reducing health care costs, that eliminating the profit motive is the key. If that were true, you'd see a difference in costs within the existing gov't-run options (Medicare, Medicaid, military/TRICARE, etc). Paying for procedures instead of results increase costs. Heroic interventions in the last months of life increase costs. People getting arbitrarily large amounts of employer-provided health care that is tax-free increases costs (because they cause workers to demand unnecessary procedures, among other reasons).

If today's health care system were to be thought of as a version of India's caste system, the Brahmins are the members of Congress and various extremely well-paid groups (with some union members being one of the few middle-case wage earners in the category), the Vaishyas being most of the other gov't employees and the bulk of the workers in large corporations, the Shudras being Medicare recipients (assuming they have Medicare D too with supplemental policy that fills D's gap), and the Dalits (untouchables) being the Medicaid and indigent veterans. Wyden's plan (or the Wyden hybrid that permits a version of the public option) eliminates the existing caste system by establishing the Congressional plan as the minimum standard of anybody's health insurance, decouples insurance from employment, enables states to try new things out (not unlike the various Oregon experiments), covers 99%+ of Americans, and according to the CBO, actually generates a budgetary surplus within a few years of its implementation.

As various people have noted, Wyden is the Senate's smartest health-care wonk, so I doubt very much that backbeat or anybody else can poke holes in his expertise. And with Wyden's HAA proposal, we even get some substantial bi-partisan support, something worthwhile if you want health care reform to survive the next time the political party pendulum crosses over to the other side.

So Richard, is asking public employees to give up their benefits the extent of your suggestions, or do you actually propose any solutions beyond poking holes in everyone else's ideas?

"I mean, it's very clear, senator, that the Republicans just want to delay and obstruct and they want to see the president fail. They have shown us that part of the play book so far."

Oh, please! Republicans just want a healthcare plan that actually makes sense, doesn't allow government to run healthcare, doesn't change people's existing coverage, and won't run us into the ground financially.

When Democrats can come up with ideas that at least try to get there, I'm sure Republicans will be more than willing to talk seriously.

Richard:

As a conservative I hope (and now believe) that this push for national health care will fail.

Bob T:

Keep in mind that the reason this has gotten this close again is because the Republicans did absolutely nothing about meaningful reform in all the years since Clinton Care was shot down. There are many things that can be done, piece by piece, to give us much improvement, but they did nothing (sorry, Bush's prescription medication bill was junk, similar to No Child Left behind -- the kind of stupidity he learned from his father - "Let's be nice, and we'll get re-elected with much greater margins").

The cap on the number of physicians needs to go away, and it's in place thanks to the AMA/State partnership (even in the 1930s, with loads of ready-made physicians coming here from Europe to escape the growing German threat, the AMA/State partnership did not let the number of physicians per capita grow as much as this immigration could have made possible).

There's also insurance reform to do away with all the mandated coverage (as if by forcing all policies to cover a zillion unlikely things the companies are somehow "prevented" from violating our rights) so we can work to creat individually-tailored policies, and to repeal various strings-attached Medicare and Medicaid policies that make loads of doctors stop dealing with it, and on and on. But these won't be done because they'll make any nationalized plan less likely (which is why the Repubs won't do it, either, because in the end they wouldn't do away with any national plan if they're in charge after the fact because they'll merely try to "improve" it.)

Bob Tiernan Portland

Ezra Klein (Wash. Post) as per usual makes sense:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/why_democrats_will_at_the_end.html

With the exception of a few of the nearly extinct species of moderate Republicans,despite all the histrionics about process, Democrats will pass a Health Care Bill this time, because they know their own party and their own political futures will be non-existent if they fail. Republicans will oppose nearly unanimously, not only because they are the defender of corporate interest, but because they know that another public entitlement builds a constituency for a generation or more. Republicans opposed social security, medicare, medicaid, and Americans like having health care security in a very insecure world.

Wyden called for canceling the August recess a day before Pelosi and two days before Reid tried to pull the plug.

You attack him when he is wrong and you attack him when he is right. You're consistent. I'll grant you that.

Re: "The Dem. party and its leadership are largely gutless and cowed by the right"

No. The Dem party is largely the right, and their only opposition is the far right, given extensive opportunity to establish a far right boundary for discussable options on "progressive" blogs.

Wyden and the other right-wing blowhards want us to believe that a "choice" exists when the choice overwhelmingly favored (SINGLE PAYER) isn't offered. Shame on all of you who have been suckered into this "debate".

"the nearly extinct species of moderate Republicans"

Who are they? The ones who haven't moved to the left far enough?

Regular every day conservative republicans are moderate. The loney left is simply casting stones from afar to the left.

As for the idea of national health care? It's a guaranteed flop and deficit catastrophy as it's being demanded by the left. The naivety and recklessness of the aggression, along with the grotesque misreprtesentations, will sink it.

Bill R:

Republicans will oppose [Obama Care] because they know that another public entitlement builds a constituency for a generation or more

Bob T:

But is that why the Dems support it?

Don't worry -- once it's passed the Repubs will never do anything except expand it and will become the party that says "we'll make it work even better".

Bob Tiernan Portland

@Bob T:-'But is that why the Dems support it? Don't worry -- once it's passed the Repubs will never do anything except expand it and will become the party that says "we'll make it work even better".

<hr/>

Bob, no doubt many elected Dem officials support it because they believe it is the best thing for their constituency, and because they believe correctly they are there to represent their constituencies interests. And some who are primarily careerists will do what they do because they think it will help them get re-elected. That said, if you are building a constituency of citizens by authentically addressing their needs, I believe that is a good thing.

And truly you are right. The Rs know once this thing is passed it creates a new component of the public safety net, one that few citizens would want to take away. And historically we know what happens to the Rs electoral prospects when they try to take away soc. sec. or medicare.

RE: Extinct Moderate Republicans

"There is no one left in the Republican Party I can talk to." Norma Paulus (former Ore. State Sec. State, and GOP candidate for governor)