Thanks, Fred. Appreciate your comment - and the cite.

I haven't had time to look for it myself but have a hunch that this or the Carper amendment, or something along that line, may be the direction that will be accepted, both by the people and by conservative Dems, maybe a few Republicans. Call it the "Saskatchewan model"

It rather negates the image of this big, monolithic Fed gov't either setting up a Big Brother mechanism that will be poking its nose in your life -- or -- (to my mind the greater fear) setting up some one system for health care that doesn't work well. Where would we be then? And it's hard for the Reps to argue against States' rights ..... or their constiuents who would now say "Sure we're skeptical about the Feds taking over, but don't you think we are capable of deciding for ourselves what we want?" Someone on TV last night pointed out that the ins. lobby would be just as able, maybe more able, to influence State legislators. True. But there are 50 states and all it would take would be for one or two of them to plow through that and develop a truly good system -- and then .... (see, Sasketchewan).

Think about it -- most of the progressive advances we have had (at least the ones that changed the status quo rather than establishing entirely new programs) - things such as women's suffrage, integration - have some by way of states first and then the rest of the country following afterwards.

But apparently, from the lack of comment both to this post and in the news in general, few people are sharing my hunch that this is an important direction. Time will tell.

If the Cantwell amendment is a small step forward for the Finance Committee, the Committee, apparently prompted by Baucus, has taken another step in the backward direction. It has changed the proposed legislation so as to increase the number of low income individuals who would be exempted from mandated insurance coverage. They are poor, but above the federal poverty level or otherwise eligible for Medicaid.

In essence, the Committee is saying "Because of your low income, we're going to do you the favor of having no health insurance".

The more appropriate response, in my view, would have been to increase federal subsidies, so that these families could have adequate coverage, even if they could afford little or none of the premium on their own.

The reason for the Committee action is that they were under pressure to reduce the taxes imposed on high-end insurance plans that serve as a means of raising money for the subsidies. By lowering the level of new taxes, they become less vulnerable to charges of "tax raiser", but at the expense of poor people.

When Congress finally votes, I truly hope the legislation will once again provide adequate subsidies to make it possible for almost all to be insured, regardless of income.