I supported him for two reasons.  One, he didn't support the war.  Two, I thought his health care plan WAS workable, instead of rehash of a failed 93 attempt.

As many have pointed out to you for months now, there is no consensus over whose health plan is superior.  There are experts on both sides of this debate.  Robert Reich is one of the foremost supporters of Obama's plan, arguing it does the most to lower costs and will cover more people than a mandated plan without clear mechanisms for enforcement.  Paul Starr has argued that Obama's plan represents the likely outer limit of what is currently possible from a legislative standpoint, but that an Obama presidency and his proposed reforms have the potential to lay important groundwork for the creation of a larger consensus on health care reform and other issues.  

You have clearly mastered one side of the health care debate.  I would like to suggest that the time has arrived to give the counter arguments a fair hearing and to consider the political context that delineates the short term and long term possibilities for this crucial initiative.

i always figured that you were just pushing your candidate's position.  i had no idea you were that profoundly naive.

you clearly have no idea about what kind of health care reform that barack will propose, let alone sign into law.  i can only assume that your are willfully ignorant on that.

please stop swiftboating the democratic nominee.  serious request...

Hillary Clinton will be on the Senate committee that works on implementing health care.  The final results will have her signature on them.

You don't have anything to worry about.  Hillary Clinton has your back.

has been highly critical of you and your comments, I'll weigh in with a civil comment to a civil diary.

I'm not a big fan of either candidate's health care plan as they stand.  I do believe, however, that both Clinton's and Obama's plans are merely starting points in the debates to come.  The final version will be, I expect, a lot closer to Clinton's, and Obama directly stated that Hillary would play a big part in development of the final policy.  I think that's a good thing.

that he will definitely crib clinton's health care plan.  he has to.  it's the right thing to do.

We need universial health care. We need it yesterday.  Due to the speed of politics, I think we won't get it any faster than 4 years from now.  If we and out Democratic elected officials eff this up, it could be decades.  I don't think that anyone on this website would argue that the stakes are high on this issue.

The only reason I preferred Obama's plan to Clinton's is that Clinton  said something in a debate about enforcing the mandate by garnishing wages (I don't have the exact quote).  She made me literally sick to my stomach as she said that because I started imagining the Republicans hammering us with that line during the GE.

I'm gonna work my butt off to get out nominee elected.  I'm gonna work my butt off to get my local Dems re-elected, and I'm gonna contribute what I can for Congressional seats that we might be able to flip from red to blue.

And in January, I'm gonna start working my butt off to convince our Democratic president and Congress to do the right thing and get us universal health care.

I think there's plenty of room for reasonable people to disagree on the merits of the two proposed plans.  

For a lot of Clinton supporters, who see Obama's plan as sorely inadequate, I would ask you all to take the long view.  If you're unhappy with his plan as it is, realize that this is only a first step on a longer journey of reform.  

His plan doesn't go far enough in my opinion either, but any plan has to make it through a congress still filled with a lot of Republicans and Blue Dogs who are going to fight healthcare reform tooth and nail.  (I'd personally love to have a fighter like Hillary spearheading the effort, either as a Senator or Sec. of HHS.)  

I've always been a supporter of single-payer health insurance.  The primary problem in the U.S. is not that people are uninsured, it's that our health care is twice as expensive as other industrialized countries.  So many people not having insurance is merely an affect of the high price.  Much better to simply pay for everyone from a payroll tax on employers, and have no individual fees other than maybe some copays.  

The two plans are virtually identical, minus the mandates.  They both could, however, lead to single-payer eventually.  Provided the new government plan is cheaper (it should be, considering Medicare is), more and more employers will dump their existing coverage and begin paying the payroll tax to be in the national plan instead.  If private insurance can't find a way to compete on cost, then it will go extinct.

On the subject of mandates, I just don't think they're needed.  For one thing, the uninsured using emergency care is a relatively small part of cost escalation currently.  Secondly, as a male just exiting my 20's, despite what some people might think, few young people I've known, if they were offered health insurance through their job, would turn it down.  The real issue are the poor who currently make too much for Medicaid.  I have no idea how much of the health insurance burden they'd pay - would it be $50 per month or $200?  Regardless, not including a mandate means that we can go back and tinker with subsidizing lower-income people more until we reach the right balance.  

Ultimately, the only mandate I'm fine with is a mandated payroll tax on employers though.  

Serious question:

If health care is in any way important to you, why would it take more than .0000007 milliseconds for you to back Obama's over McCain's?

I mean, do you even know McCain's "plan"?

This debate seems reminiscent of the debate over the failed health care plan in Clinton's first term.  

Just because a candidate supports Plan X does not mean that Plan X will be enacted without any changes and become law under the candidate's administration.

If  Hillary is going to be in charge of sheparding Obama's health care plan in the senate, let's just hope she and her supporters remember the mistakes from her first attempt and be open to the fact that not all democrats will agree 100% with the plan, and that's okay and they are not the enemy if they have some differing views.  

Architek:
Can you find away to write a "unity" diary without being divisive?  I think not.

I got news for you, and I read your diary about your health issuse, but it's not going to change over night.  THAT. IS. REALITY.

Healthcare reform in America, provided we can maintain leadership committed to it, isn't a matter of just who is in office.  Telephasic is right, until employers climb aboard, it's not really going to happen the way you want.

Former Clinton supporters need not worry about the lack of mandates in Obama's plan.  While his plan is popular among consumers (voters), it will not fly with the insurance companies.  If forced to insure sick people and people who have a history of illnesses/ailments, they will want to spread the risk as thin as possible by taking no chances that any healthy people don't buy insurance.

recommended this diary.

having read the comments so far, arch, i think that the fundamental difference on health care between you & the various others is that you don't trust obama & the rest (including myself) do.

i think that the end goal here for most people, including one barack obama, is single payer health care.  i think that this is an opening move on obama's part & that he won't be satisfied until we have a single payer system that provides healthcare to all americans.  

if you look at the strategy that howard dean followed in the nineties in vermont, i think you'll have a better idea of what i think obama's strategy will be:  step by step, one thing at a time, but with a definite endgoal:  100% health care coverage for all americans & more than likely at a fraction of the current costs.

two things to support this & you can research the rest as you get time.  first, obama as a community organizer in his youth has seen first hand how poverty & lack of health care can destroy lives.  second, the step by step approach is one that he's favored as a legislator in the illinois senate.

i know that's going to sound like a lot of hot air to you.  i know that you want something concrete right now.  i know that you don't have the trust in obama that i & a lot of others do.  that's fine.  all i'm asking is that you give him a chance.

& just so you know, if he doesn't do this, if he's content to get his health care plan passed & then rests, i & a lot of other obama supporters are more than willing to hold his feet to the fire until he does.
s.

It's a great day not only for African Americans, but ALL Americans. We should all feel proud.