From the "Seems to me…." file.

A lot's been said lately about honoring the memory and legacy of Senator Kennedy. Seems to me the best way to do that now would be for the House to suck it up and pass Senate bill .

It's just a step, but a step beats a stumble. We're going to end up fixing the damn thing every year for years to come, anyway. You've gotta start somewhere.

When the Speaker says she hasn't got the votes "at this time," she could be saying "get me the votes." I'd like to think so, anyway. It's time to call your Democratic Member of Congress and tell them to get the one thing done that we know we can do.

Ordinarily I'd trust my own personal Congressman to do the right thing on health care issues, but I'm sure there are elements of the Senate bill that give Jim McDermott cause - arguably good cause - for pause, so I'll be calling his office to encourage him to secure what will be a hard earned, if not difinitive, in a battle that has very much been the cause of his life as much as it was of Kennedy's.

Call and encourage your Congressmember to declare victory, too.

Like me, for instance.

Paul Krugman...

By all means criticize the administration. But don't take it out on the tens of millions of Americans who will have health insurance if this bill passes, but will be out of luck -- and, in some cases, dead -- if it doesn't.

Oh, please.

John Aravosis...

Damn, Howard Dean seems to have more backbone that the White House and the Congress combined.

Backbone? What does Dean's attention grabbing hissy fit have to do with backbone? Howard Dean has absolutely no skin in this game at all. He isn't responsible to any constituency and he's totally insulated from the effects of any health care plan whatsoever by his own insurance, personal wealth and membership in an elite ring of "professional courtesy." He's free to completely ignore the plight of the millions who will be denied insurance or lose their insurance, some of whom will suffer early and painful deaths as a result, without the reforms that exist even under the Senate plan as it stands before possible (I'd argue for probable) improvements in conference. It doesn't take backbone to toss bombs out the hatch of a secure bunker.

John Cole gets it...

…you know who will have health insurance even if this bill fails: Howard Dean, Katrina van den Huevel, Ed Schultz, and 99% of the people burning up twitter and memeorandum right now.

And Kos, Hamsher and Arovosis, too.

From the "Me too" file.

Ezra Klein...

...if I could construct a system in which insurers spent 90 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, never discriminated against another sick applicant, began exerting real pressure for providers to bring down costs, vastly simplified their billing systems, made it easier to compare plans and access consumer ratings, and generally worked more like companies in a competitive market rather than companies in a non-functional market, I would take that deal. And if you told me that the price of that deal was that insurers would move from being the 86th most profitable industry to being the 53rd most profitable industry, I would still take that deal.

Me too.

I'm a little astonished at the number of people who seem to have grown faint upon learning that the insurance industry will be making a lot of money in the future. They're making a lot of money now, folks, which is a principle reason why, from the very beginning of this debate, there's been no virtually no discussion of alternatives that would replace, or even significantly displace, the insurance industry.

We'll get real health care reform someday, if we keep up the fight. Meanwhile, even the inadequate health insurance regulation in the Senate bill, which can still be strengthened in conference, is a meaningful step forward for millions of Americans.

A step forward. As in progress.

And another thing…

…about that Senate Bill. When someone tells you it must be killed, as yourself whether they are fully insured. I'm not, and it sure looks better than nothing to me. Not enough, but no one's offering enough this round. It’s step along the way, thought, at least and it doesn't look so bad from down here at the bottom of the health care food chain.