Government Option in Health, or Anything - Check out this Historical Gem!

On the way into Leo, I listened to Better Government Association( BGA) Softball Andy Shaw toss Softballs to Congresswoman Jan 'I-Spy-The Turk' Schakowsky.

Forty Watt Jan bubbled and squeaked with delight about the Health Care Reform Snowe-Job yesterday. Jan and other really deep thinkers will continue to push a government health care option down American throats, until the upchuck of voter outrage changes Congress.

The Commies under Stalin ordered that a monster of a bomber be built - kind of like our Democratic Congress pushing a monstrosity of a Health Care Bill - in full breathless 'It's A EMERGENCY!!!!' mode.

Here is a fine example of the Government Option in History.

Second and final in our series of posts today about very big things is this Soviet K-7 bomber, which dates from 1930s, before jet propulsion. As you can see by the tiny little people in the bottom right, this thing is vast - 28 metres long and 53m wing-to-wing. It weighed 38 tonnes when loaded.

It carried 120 passengers within wings which were 2.3m thick. Melded from chrome-molybdenum steel, the design originally called for six engines, but when built, a seventh had to be added. It first flew in August 1933, but crashed that November, killing 15 people. Two more were ordered, but the project was cancelled before they could be delivered.

Click my post titke for more.


Built in Russia during the 1930s, it flew 11 times before crashing and
killing 15 people.

The designer, Konstantin Kalinin, wanted to build two more planes but the
project was scrapped.

Later, Stalin had Kalinin executed. Next time -Read the Job Description!

Evidently, it was not good to fail on an expensive project under Stalin. Evidently.

It's got ( it has, Ms. Sullivan, it has - I am in south side mode, thank you!) propellers on the back of the wings, too. You can count 12 engines
facing front.

The size would be equivalent to the Empire State Building on its side,
with cannons. Think Secretary Napolitano in a thong bikini.

And you think the 747 was big... not only a bunch of engines but check out
the cannons the thing was carrying. Can not have too many cannons.

In the 1930s the Russian army was obsessed by the idea of creating huge
planes and executing millions of people.

At that time of design, it was proposed to have as many propellers as possible to
help carrying those huge flying fortresses into the air, jet propulsion has
not been implemented yet.

Not many photos were saved from those times because of the high secrecy
levels of such projects and because a lot of time has already passed.

Still, on the attached photos you can see one such plane - a heavy bomber
K-7. Too big to fail? - Oh, I don't think so! Failed Hugely, Murial!

Imagine what these dopes could have done with a grammar school bake sale?


Can you imagine what it would be like sitting in this thing when those
cannons go off? It would be like being a guest on the Ed Schultz Show.

BTW - What is BGA Softball Andy Shaw doing on WLS? Andy grab some real crooks? How'd you miss ACORN, Genius?



Huge Hat Tip to my California Patriot Pal Mike McQuade! Updated link and Hat Tip to R. Torrence for more on this monstrosity of Government Design.
Here -
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/k7bomber.htm

Docshunds Bark for Barack!

In another indication that President 44 has morphed into Jimmy Carter ( noted for sporting a swell fireside Cardigan for image), President Barack Obama trotted out his Best in Show team of 150 Docs to bark for Obama Care!

The Copenhagen-in-Chief snapped out this command -

"we have heard all the arguments" for and against reform, citing at one point "the crazy claims" that his plans call for so-called death panels that would make end-of-life decisions for seniors.

Obama spelled out "again," as he put it, the insurance guarantees and insurance-exchange proposal that he supports in legislation emerging in Congress. He highlighted one proposal to forgive the loans of medical students who decide to practice primary-care medicine in rural and underserved communities, drawing hearty applause in return.

But his chief argument for the doctors was that his plan would allow them to better fulfill the "oath" they took as they began practicing medicine. He said that oath was not to "become bean counters or paper pushers," but "to save lives." In a reformed health care system, he said, they would have more time to do that.

Now! Roll Over!!!

Bark! Bark! Bark! and Barque!

Good Docs! You may keep the Lab Coats!

Racists Turn Backs on Portrait of President Digging for Nose Gold

In the ever expanding Universe of Americans turning their backs on Obama Health Reform and other costly treats, White House Spokesfolks ginned up the heat on Racists and Terrorists (the folks photoed above).

MSNBC will do a two-hour loop tape to run around the clock over the next six months to point out Racism on Main Street U.S.A. There's no getting away from it - from Martha's Vineyard to Bum Hump, Arkansas- this "Nation of Cowards" does not cotton to Government Health Care or State Sponsored Abortion. ( click my post title)

Abortion is Health Care Reform:"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said to the Rabbis

Abortion is not a 'faith based initiative.' It is in the planned and pushed Health Reform Package and it will stay tucked in there until Illinois atheist Rob Sherman starts doing the collections at Sacred Heart 10:30 Mass on Sunday.

President Obama told a group of Rabbis,"We are God's partners in matters of life and death"
From Politico's Ben Smith:

A reader points out that President Obama's call with the rabbis today — as recorded in Rabbi Jack Moline's and other clerics' Twitter feeds — freights health care reform with a great deal of religious meaning, and veers into the blend of policy and faith that outraged liberals in the last administration.

"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said, according to Moline (paging Sarah Palin...), quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is decided "who shall live and who shall die."

The president ended the call by wishing the rabbis "shanah tovah," or happy new year — in reference to the High Holidays a month from now.

Shanah tovah - unless you happen to be the kid the womb.

Yep, President Obama is as beholden to the gals of Planned Parenthood as he is to the Purple Gang of SEIU and Brazilian Oil Tycoon Georgie Soros. It's the Chicago way to remember and do the bidding of your Chinaman (plural in this case).

Catholics voted heavily for President Obama and politicians gave them the will to do so and so did many trades unions and the old school operation of politics. It is very understandable.

I voted for many politicians who are beholden to Planned Parenthood - Dick Durbin, John Kerry, and many more. Now, it does not seem right to do so. There are too many Catholic public servants like Rep. Kevin Joyce, Sen. Ed Maloney and others who refuse to take the abortion coin and they are good Democrats. These gents stay true to their faith.

The fact is that abortion is and will remain a very important virtue of the President's Health Reform push.

I read these six points at American Papist.

1. The House bill specifically includes it. The Capps amendment explicitly allows abortion coverage in the public health plan and subsidizes health plans that cover abortion. (Passed 30-28 in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, July 30)

2. Senate Democrats admit it. "[The health care bill] would include, uh, it would include, uh, Planned, uh, Parenthood clinics." (Sen. Barbara Mikulski, July 9, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions-HELP-Committee meeting-Planned Parenthood is the No. 1 U.S. abortion chain.)

3. Senate Democrats refused to ban it. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah): "Madam Chairman, would you be willing to put some language in [about] not including abortion services? Then I think you would have more support."Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.): "...No, I would not, uh, be willing to do that at this time." (July 9, Senate HELP Committee meeting)

4. The mainstream media confirms it. ("Government insurance would allow coverage for abortion," Associated Press, August 5, 2009).

5. The Obama administration includes it in its definition of reproductive health care. "Reproductive health care includes access to abortion." (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, July 19)

6. Every amendment to exclude it from health care legislation was defeated by the liberal sponsors. The following is a list of pro-life amendments that would have prevented abortion funding or prohibited abortion mandates for covered services. (For vote tallies and details, see our complete list at www.frc.org here)

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/We_are_Gods_partners_in_matters_of_life_and_death.html?showall

Klein's Nihilists? "Say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, dude, at least it’s an ethos"

Walter Sobchak: "Nihilists! F@#$ me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

Time's Primary Colorist Joe Klein whines about townhall folks, which he misidentifies for the purpose of propaganda as GOP, being Nihilists. Click my post title and be moved - or not, which was the case with me, but then again I am a mean selfish bastard.

I have nothing more to say on this topic. Nothing. Nada. Who cares? Zip. Oblivion. Nuttin'!

Watch MSNBC Flannelmouth O'Donnell Get His Come-up-ance - Not That He Understands What That Means

You Got That Right, O'Donnell!
Lawrence O'Donnell is filling in for Chris "Milky" Matthews, another Mick Loud Mouth, on MSNBC's Hard Ball.

MSNBC is what I have on when doing the laundry for House Hickey. It is white noise that goes positively Albino when Matthews is on - now, I have see-thru Irish skin,but my God Matthews looks like one of those scary dudes in the Matrix movies or the poor kid Milky in Me, Myself,& Irene.

Matthews usually has on a cavalcade of Irish-American cartoon characters that anyone who attended a parish grammar school in America can recognize - Joan Walsh and Lawrence O'Brien the sure fire Rat-out Everyone else in Class Ass-Kissers and phonies who were sure to let SISTER know that 'Everyone else in Room 304 was talking and not acting as the Blessed Virgin would expect of Catholic children.'

Joan Walsh is afflicted with a perpetual slow-head-shake employed when an opposing point of view's representative is speaking,in order to visually poison the well of dispute for MSNBC.

O'Donnell is the Loud-Mouth Faux Tough Guy Son of the On-the-Pad Police Captain Who Will 'Have Your Old Man Pinched When He Comes Out of B&H Liquors' and only hits a guy when three of his toadies are holding his arms. He is the type of guy who wears his high school Letterman's jacket for the balance of his life though he never played a down of football or got his Chuck Taylor's dirty.

MSNBC has managed to coral every jerk-stereotype from every Catholic grammar school in America into its Democratic Progressive Irish Cartoon Panel. If you remember a creep from St. Malachy's, St. Gabe's, Little Flower, St. Brendan's or St. Columbanus, watch MSNBC and you catch that creep shouting or doing the weepy phoney act.

MSNBC is a propaganda mill. No News is Their News. MSNBC sports Tamron Hall who could not find a Chinaman on 22nd Street while reading news copy at Fox in Chicago; David 'Shay It Don't Shpray It - Fountainmouth' Schuester, a nebbish of the 1st Order; Fatboy Keith Olbermann -nuff said on that nut-job; Butch Maddow, the GLBT show dog of MSNBC and Herman Goring Wannabe Ed Schultz. A Ship of Fools. Volume does not mean quality. Birthers, Palin-Is-Satan, You are a Racist and We Are Not, You Are a Redneck and We Are Not is the full battery of MSNBC opinion slingers.

Lawrence O'Donnell had the sound tech pin back the arms of dispute with a Texas Congressman over the Health Care Debate - which MSNBC is working overtime to help derail. Real Clear Politics offered a video of the shout-down by O'Donnell, which really is Milky's shtick, of Rep. Cullbertson (R,TX) who manages to wedge in this shot on flannel-mouth O'Donnell:

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX): "You know, Lawrence, for your listeners, you're illustrating why MSNBC's viewership is in the tank because you don't allow your people you're interviewing to answer questions. And, you know Lawrence, this is why Katie and everybody else is going to Facebook, everyone's going to the Internet because why listen to MSNBC when you won't even let the people you're interviewing answer the question?"

Click my post title for the full treatment.
Anyone -Democrat, Republican, or any thinking bi-ped who goes on MSNBC should have his/her head examined. It was the first time that I have witnessed am abused guest on that idiotic channel punch back at a bullying creep - neither O'Donnell, nor Matthews would have graduated from high school with a full set of buckers on the south side of Chicago. Creeps of all faiths, races and political persuassions ( though most are Real Democrats) would have been treated to a sound, thorough and wholesome ass-kicking -for starters.


Huge thanks to Tom Bevan's Real Clear Politics for the Head's Up!

Dr. Camille Paglia Knows That Sgt. Jimmy Crowley Will Have Another Beer at the White House Before Obama's Public Option Gets Articulated

Salon is a pretentious word for a beer and wine guzzle and gum flap. Its roots are in the Italian neoclassical age ( late 16th century) when everyone who was anyone was agog over Horace, Cicero, Virgil and Catalus.

Groups of people who could read met in a big open room and read Latin poetry and discussed the beauties of the tropes and truths of the sentences. The French went apey over the salone gatherings of the Italians and aped the tradition from the 17th Century on and then the children and grandchildren of Yankee Puritans and immigrant swell-wannabees played Salon. They still do.

I attend a Salon every morning up at Kean Gas where worthies gather to exercise their gums over events and ideas large and small. This gathering includes teachers, lawyers, ComEd workers, Peoples Gas clerks, Cops, Firefighters, Nurses and Ward precinct captains. Invariably my faults and peccadillo's are tossed back upon my positions to poison the well of dispute -nonetheless, my helot's thoughts get free voice. Last Friday, I had the pleasure to 'salon' with Beachwood Reporter and NBC Chicago web-meister Steve Rhodes - a rock-ribbed liberal of the old school and young man with a lode of intellectual and literary gold to mine. I was bested in dispute and at Eight Ball no end by Rhodes and other 'bright young things' - and that is as it should be. It was the best of salons.

Salon ( Clique my Post Title) is also a slick magazine that features agreed upon smart-set contributors and sanctioned opinion-slingers. Ever-weepy and whiny Joan Walsh, an endlessly dull harpy and MSNBC head-shaker, holds this tent's center-post. However, the absolute best writer and only original thinker at this salone ( in deference to the Professor's Italian Heritage) is Camille Paglia.

I know of Dr. Pagila due to my trade as a has-been English teacher. Camille Paglia always extends the context - the breadth and depth of her reading never posts limits on her mind's ability to articulate without cant or bigotry.Dr. Pagila is openly gay yet not given to strident agenda netting. She is a former Catholic who respects the beauty, mystery and majesty of the Faith. She is a feminist who never allows simple-minded association to grab for the broad brush and repaint the house.

This week Dr. Paglia went right to the root of the Obama White House's failure to articulate why Health Care Reform must be accepted by every American without a careful examination of the guts of the agenda. Paglia writes that Obama Care's root problem could be witnessed a few weeks ago in the Gates/Crowley nonsense and distraction. Pagila states,

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished.

Surely, the basic rule in comprehensive legislation should be: First, do no harm. The present proposals are full of noble aims, but the biggest danger always comes from unforeseen and unintended consequences. Example: the American incursion into Iraq, which destabilized the region by neutralizing Iran's rival and thus enormously enhancing Iran's power and nuclear ambitions.

What was needed for reform was an in-depth analysis, buttressed by documentary evidence, of waste, fraud and profiteering in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Instead what we've gotten is a series of facile, vulgar innuendos about how doctors conduct their practice, as if their primary motive is money. Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.

Of course, it didn't help matters that, just when he needed maximum momentum on healthcare, Obama made the terrible gaffe of declaring that, even without his knowing the full facts, Cambridge, Mass., police had acted "stupidly" in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Obama's automatic identification with the pampered Harvard elite (wildly unpopular with most sensible people), as well as his insulting condescension toward an officer doing his often dangerous duty, did serious and perhaps irreparable damage to the president's standing. The strained, prissy beer summit in the White House garden afterward didn't help. Is that the Obama notion of hospitality? Another staff breakdown.

Both Gates and Obama mistakenly assumed that the original incident at Gates' house was about race, when it was about class. It was the wealthy, lordly Gates who committed the first offense by instantly and evidently hysterically defaming the character of the officer who arrived at his door to investigate the report of a break-in. There was no excuse for Gates' loud and cheap charges of racism, which he should have immediately apologized for the next day, instead of threatening lawsuits and self-aggrandizing television exposés. On the other hand, given that Cambridge is virtually a company town, perhaps police headquarters should have dispatched a moderator to the tumultuous scene before a small, disabled Harvard professor was clapped in handcuffs and marched off to jail. But why should an Ivy League panjandrum be treated any differently from the rest of us hoi polloi?

Class rarely receives honest attention in the American media, as demonstrated by the reporting on a June incident at a swimming pool in the Philadelphia suburbs. When the director of the Valley Swim Club in Montgomery County cancelled its agreement with several urban day camps to use its private pool, the controversy was portrayed entirely in racial terms. There were uninvestigated allegations of remarks about "black kids" made by white mothers who ordered their children out of the pool, and the racial theme was intensified by the director's inept description of the "complexion" of the pool having been changed -- which may simply have been a whopper of a Freudian slip.

A salon is a big open room. Camille Paglia seems to be the only Salonista willing to welcome the helots who drink coffee with me at Kean.

God Bless, Dr. Paglia.

SEIU Scripting Dan Lipinski on Health Legislation - It Sure Looks Like It!

Edwardian England -
Oscar Wilde - " I wish I'd said that!"
James Whistler - "You Will, Oscar. You will!*"

The Other Day -
Dan Lipinski - A Car Simile!
SEIU - Yes, a Car Simile. It's like when . . .
Dan Lipinski - I thought nothing was like when.
SEIU - Just read it and believe it.
Dan Lipinski - That, I can do!

Dan Lipinski is getting cover from SEIU - why not, money and crowds of XXXL Purple sign wavers.

Dan Lipinksi voted for Cap and Trade.

Now,Dan Lipinski is going all Progressive in his tag-along work for SEIU over Health Care Legislation that will lead to Government Medicine. Bad Medicine.

In STNG ( Pioneer Press)The Doings: LaGrange Dan Lipinski seems to have lifted his statement directly from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199 on the Bureau of Workers Compensation payments to the medical industry from July 21, 2005 study that decries American Health Industry. Click my post title for that study. This study was reported in Environment Health and Safety Leaders EHS Today way back in 2004 - about the time that Congressman Lipinski states that he began his study of America's Health.

Many of the claims against the Bill's enemies - the Health Villains picked out by SEIU for Congressman Dan Lipinski - echo in the 3rd District's Congressman's statement printed on August 9, 2009.

However, Dan Lipinski even seems to have even lifted a witticism from the article.

In the STNG statement Dan Lipinski catalogs the evils of the Hospitals, Insurance Companies, and the Pharmecuetical villains but also adds this, "One reason treatment is so expensive is the near-total lack of price information available to health care consumers. These days, entering a hospital for treatment is like buying a car without looking at the sticker."
Yep. Smart Simile going on there, Dan. However, in 2005, an SEIU Spokes Folk said this

"It's like going to buy a car and instead of negotiating based on what the actual cost of manufacturing the car is and figuring in a slight mark-up, taking the sticker price on the window and negotiating something higher and then thinking you've done a good job," Courtney said.

While Ohio BWC's payment structure, which the agency implemented in 1998, seems reasonable at first blush, Courtney and SEIU allege that BWC is not paying a percentage of the actual cost of providing medical treatment to injured workers. Instead, SEIU asserts the agency is paying a percentage of a huge mark-up on the cost of those services as much as 300 percent, depending on the hospital. SEIU calls the mark-up a "sticker price," while hospitals call it a "charge."

Here is Congressman Dan Lipinski's full statement.

August 6, 2009

By Dan Lipinski
Ed. note: This is one of our regular essays from legislators. We've asked them to use the space to speak to their constituents. Rep. Dan Lipinski's 3rd Congressional District includes Indian Head Park, La Grange, LaGrange Park, Western Springs, Burr Ridge, Westchester.

Unrelenting increases in health care costs are creating an intolerable burden for individuals, families, businesses and the government, while tens of millions of Americans lack any insurance. People with pre-existing conditions are denied affordable coverage. The first time that hospital patients learn the price of their surgery is when the bill arrives in the mail, full of steep price mark-ups.

Insurers bury the details of their plans in the fine print, leaving people uninformed until it is too late. The pharmaceutical industry is hugely profitable, but taxpayers are subsidizing the advertising expenses of drug companies.

It is clear to me, and the many Third District residents who have contacted me, that change is long overdue. Every part of the health care system is in need of reform. That's why I am focused on fighting to pass comprehensive reform legislation.

As I scrutinize the reform proposals Congress is considering, I am focused on holding all the players in the health care industry accountable, making health care more affordable and improving the quality of care (including promoting preventive care and early treatment). Controlling skyrocketing costs must be a key priority. Surging costs not only hurt families, but threaten our government's financial stability and the vitality of our nation's economy. Just as I did when considering the ill-conceived bailout and the flawed stimulus, I continue to focus on fiscal discipline.

I have been working on repairing broken parts of the health care system since I was elected in 2004. As a diabetic, I am keenly aware of the importance of good care and insurance coverage. The first piece of legislation I introduced in Congress was the Hospital Price Transparency and Disclosure Act.

One reason treatment is so expensive is the near-total lack of price information available to health care consumers. These days, entering a hospital for treatment is like buying a car without looking at the sticker.

My legislation would end that, by mandating that hospitals disclose the prices they charge for the most common procedures and medications. This would allow people to shop for the best price, helping to drive down costs. I am currently working to ensure that a price transparency provision is included in the legislation Congress is considering.

Another issue I believe we must address is the tax break that health insurance and pharmaceutical companies receive for their advertising expenditures. Eliminating these subsidies would produce at least $6.3 billion annually that could be devoted to urgently needed health care reforms.

The pharmaceutical ads that fill our airwaves continue to generate concern about the accuracy of the information they contain, and their potential to artificially increase demand for drugs, sometimes even before dangerous side effects become known.

One recent study estimated that drug companies spend more on promotion than they do on research and development -- a clear example of misplaced priorities.

As pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer measures, both my price transparency and pharmaceutical bills are endorsed by Consumers Union, the independent, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. No doubt they won't solve every problem in the system, nor do they represent all of my health care reform efforts. But they are examples of the kind of straightforward, common-sense improvements to our health care system that I am fighting for in Washington.

As I write this, I continue to work to improve the health care reform legislation that we are considering in the House of Representatives. It is critical that this bill constitutes comprehensive reform, and avoids pouring more money into a broken system. I will carefully examine the bill to make sure it meets my core principles for reform, cost-savings, and coverage, and improves health care for the residents of the Third District.

A tall fella like Congressman Alamo Dan Lipinski should not need lifts.

A Primary Run? Anyone?

*
*In a rare appearance as a 'straight man', Oscar Wilde complimented James Whistler on a quip with the words, 'I wish I'd said that.' Whistler devastatingly replied, 'You will, Oscar, you will.'



http://www.pioneerlocal.com/lagrange/news/forum/1704122,pioneer-press-lipinski-073009-s1.article

Lipinski Tells Third District "Take Government Run Health and Like It!' Line in the Sand drawn for Danny by SEIU on July 1, 2009 - Yeah, That'll work?

I can not wait for reed-like Danny Lipinski, whose 3rd Congressional District is dominated by senior citizens and Catholics, to hold his Government Health Care townhall meeting.

Duck, Son! That's boiling water them Bushas are fixing to toss at you - Marquette Park Napalm! The odd shouts of wkurwiasz mnie ; co kurwa, do kurwy nędzy ! ; or in Lithuanian -Gaidzio pautai, galva and dve is, shudvezis! Mmm(1) Mmm(2) Mmmmnnn(3rd and final with a shake of the head.

Oh, well the XXXXXXLLL Purple T-Shirts guided by the XXS. Purple T-Shirted white guy with three Masters Degrees from University of Pennsylvania will be a huge help!

I hope Danny has one. You Tube would melt.

Here's Congressboy Lipinski's SEIU Marching Orders from July 1, 2008 on the SEIU funded graphic novel Progress Illinois:

Rep. Lipinski wasted no time drawing a line in the sand*, telling the 3rd Congressional District crowd that, in order to limit the cost of health care for individuals, small businesses, and the federal government, a public plan is a must.

But his support comes with a few caveats. Lipinski admits that employers may stop offering private insurance to workers if a government plan exists. "It all depends on how the public option is implemented," he said. And Lipinski prefers the "level-playing field option" championed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in which the government-run plan would be granted no special advantages over private insurers, such as the ability to use Medicare's low rates or to access taxpayer subsidies.

*Wow an Alamo trope! How'd that work out for Travis, Danny Boy? Alamo Dan Lipinski!