Not everyone recognizes that we have a universal health care plan in this country-- approved and in operation in the city of San Francisco. Since it went into effect this year, it has been enrolling residents at a rate of 600 per week with the goal of covering everyone in the city up to 500% of the poverty line (about $100,000 per year for a family of four) by early 2009.

The good news is that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld the law after a challenge by the business lobby that it violated federal ERISA benefits law, because employers not providing health care for their employees are required to pay $1.17 to $1.76 per hour to the city in order to cover their employees' costs under the city-provided health care plan. In Golden Gate Rest. Ass'n v. San Francisco upheld these employer responsibility provisions as in compliance with federal law.

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Last week, I gave some of the reasons why I thought that the bailout was a lesser evil solution, but I want to emphasize that the "bailout" bill, especially if it can be tightened in the next few days to get more Dem votes, is a far cheaper alternative to the status quo.

Just look at the headline on the front of TPM itself: Fed Pumps Further $630 Billion Into Financial System, which details the massive emergency loans that the Fed has authorized for the financial system. This comes on top of the deal Citigroup got for buying Wachovia, where the federal government agreed to absorb ALL losses on bad loans above $42 billion in Wachovia's portfolio, similar to the deal JPMorgan Chase got for buying Bear Sterns. The risk and obligations assumed are unknown and could balloon astronomically for taxpyers.

Compared to these bailouts that already happening on a massive scale, here's the advantage of the explicit "bailout" legislation:

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Divided government and bipartisan gridlock has prevented serious revamping of the financial markets for decades-- and, as fingerpointing over the failed bailout bill now shows, has eliminated any sense of accountability, whether for which party leadership acted or failed to act to rein in financial excesses and who needed to act to solve the crisis. One toxic problem was the Democratic leadership's fear of owning a solution and seeking "bipartisan" support, even though this alienated their own party members.

I'm reading Michael Heller's Gridlock Economy, which is primarily about how a multiplicity of property rights from ownership of land to patents undermines economic growth and innovation, but he has a similar point on politics (written even before the recent meltdown). Financial markets loved Dems taking back Congress in 2006, mostly because it promised gridlock on regulation:

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