Thanks for nothing, Max. When I heard about your bill this morning I was mildly pissed, because I knew you would water everything down so that something “passable” would happen and it would have no effect on anything. And then everybody would say “you see,” we should have left things alone and let the free market fix it.

Americans, you are dreaming. The free market doesn’t operate anywhere in America, least of all in health care. And while I counsel entrepreneurs and trumpet startup ventures all day long, I do tend to love the ones that are out to change the world rather than just to make a buck, although my first question to anybody who requests a meeting with me is always “how are you going to monetize that?” It’s why I love Health 2.0 and patient empowerment and personal health records.

And why I now hate politics. In the effort to please everybody, Obama, Baucus, indeed everyone iin Washington except maybe Ron Paul, has sold themselves down the river. You mandate insurance, you cut off the subsidies at $60,000 for a family of four, and you neglect to mention that this year insurance for a family of 4 costs over $13,300. This is the tenth year in a row that the cost of insurance has outpaced the growth of wages. That’s about 24% of the income of a family just above the cutoff. And if they neglect to buy the insurance, there’s a fine of $3800. What good does that do?

But in Washington they are playing only a numbers game. Hit Obama’s number of $900b. Hit the 60-senator number to block a filibuster.

It isn’t about numbers, though. It’s about my partner in this blog, Karoli, whose son has Ulcerative Colitis and Type 2 diabetes, which he has just acquired, but which will be pre-existing conditions he will take with him for the rest of his life. He is now uninsurable. He’s 20. He did nothing to deserve this; he has hardly finished growing up.

You can hear Karoli’s moan in her post on Momocrats:

So, Senator, what do we get from you? A pile of crap wrapped up in pretty red Republican paper with a little bipartisan bullshit on the side.
Imagine having to face not doing what you love, what you were gifted for, because it means medical bills will always dog you.

Imagine having to make a choice between talent and health.

Imagine having to give up what you’ve been passionate about for over one-half of a short twenty-year old life.

Imagine having to choose. Imagine having YOU CHOOSE FOR ME.

Your pathetic effort to appease the unappeasable just rendered you irrelevant. Step back, get out of the way, and let your colleagues who actually understand this is not a game of “richest lobbyist wins” get something done.

Bipartisanship is not an option here, by declaration of the teapartiers, the birthers, the tenthers and all the others who have no balls or courage to answer this problem with a real solution. My son cannot live on rhetoric. He cannot build a life or a career on your lack of courage. If and your buddy Kent Conrad think it’s a good idea to cater to the money guys, that’s your problem. Don’t make it mine. You had your chance to do this right. More than your chance. We put up with the lunatic town halls, insane finger-biting incidents, and racist drivel so you could have your chance. That’s done now.

Get out of my kid’s way and let the big boys forge a realistic pathway for him to work toward his goals. He has been a taxpaying contributing member of society since he was 14 years old. He pays his own way through school with no loans while remaining on the Dean’s list and representing his college at jazz festivals around the state. At the ripe old age of 20, he deserves a better future than indentured servitude to an employer with a health plan and a Senator planning his retirement on insurance company payrolls.

I don’t know how to help her, except to get out my big pen and my big bottle of ink and write.

And then there’s my friend Pat, who was diagnosed with leukemia last week, laid off (from a health industry job) and uninsured. Gleevec is the drug she needs to stay alive. She picked up the first month’s pills today at the pharmacy. Cost: $4499 for 30 pills.

Luckily, she’s on Arizona’s version of Medicaid right now because she’s unemployed. But this means she can never go back to rewarding work, which she wants to do, because she can’t earn enough to jeopardize her Medicaid. Insurance will rule her life, too, like it rules Karoli’s son’s.

God blinking dammit, Americans! Don’t you get it????? Why isn’t there rioting in the streets? This should be life and death. It IS life and death. It is not about “free markets,” which I have never seen in my 68 years on this planet.

I feel like a cross between Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann. Forgive the personal rant.

Science Daily: U.S. Congressional Health-care Reform Proposals Would Offer Coverage To Many Without Insurance

With health reform high on the agenda of the incoming Congress and President, a new analysis of legislative proposals—including the plans of President-elect Barack Obama and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT)—shows that several proposals already put forth could substantially reduce the number of uninsured Americans, and would either reduce health care spending or add only modestly to annual health care expenditures.

The proposals demonstrate that it is possible to cover everyone with little or no additional total health spending, but to do so means requiring that everyone have coverage, and achieving administrative savings and purchasing efficiencies by building on public programs and group purchase of private insurance—either through employers or insurance exchanges.

SEIU: Six Diverse Groups Unite in Nationwide Call for Health Care Reform as Key to Economic Reform

Washington, D.C. – Six organizations representing consumers, physicians, insurers, patients and pharmaceutical research companies are banding together to launch a new multi-million dollar national television advertising buy. Their common message: In order to fix the ailing economy, the nation needs health care reform that addresses the related problems of health care costs and people losing health coverage.

HCAN (Health Care for America Now): Richard Kirsch: “We’re going to have to be in our communities talking to people whether it’s by text message or phone or on the Internet but also in people’s faces, in the street demonstrating – everything it takes to make it clear to Congress and this country that it’s about time we all had good affordable health care.”