ctblogger interviews "Juan Figueroa (President, Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut) and talked to him about the importance of HB 6600." Figueroa is pushing for a universal healthcare solution on the Connecticut state level.  Read more…

I already gave you plenty of reason to rage against Senator Chris Dodd the other day, after he tried to tell us he wouldn't listen to our very clear message... But now, courtesy of CaptCT, I can give you a million reasons to double down on this industry shill:

Jackie M. Clegg Dodd serves on the board of health care, pharmaceutical, and financial services companies.

Here's a list:

Director , Brookdale Senior Living Incorporated
Brentwood , TN
Sector: HEALTHCARE / Long-Term Care Facilities

Director , Cardiome Pharma Corporation
Vancouver, B.C. , CN

Via Mark Pazniokas of the Hartford Courant, 675 angry and frustrated people showed up to this healthcare forum at Goodwin College:

On the first day of a listening tour on health care, an issue pivotal to the new Congress and his own re-election, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd got an earful Friday.

For those interested in the analytical side of universal health care challenges, a fascinating comprehensive series of articles on the current state and future prospects for health care in China is now available online from The Lancet (simple registration required).

And use me as your surrogate! What could be better?

It really is that simple and that clear cut. The Shrill One:

The end result is that the uninsured receive a lot less care than the insured. And sometimes this lack of care kills them. According to a recent estimate by the Urban Institute, the lack of health insurance leads to 27,000 preventable deaths in America each year.

But are they really preventable? Yes. Stories like those of Trina Bachtel and Monique White are common in America, but don’t happen in any other rich country — because every other advanced nation has some form of universal health insurance. We should, too.

All of which makes the media circus of a few days ago truly shameful.

Some readers may already have recognized the story of Trina Bachtel. While campaigning in Ohio, Hillary Clinton was told this story, and she took to repeating it, without naming the victim, on the campaign trail. She used it as an illustration of what’s wrong with American health care and why we need universal coverage.

Then The Washington Post identified Ms. Bachtel, the hospital where she died claimed that the story was false — and the news media went to town, accusing Mrs. Clinton of making stuff up. Instead of being a story about health care, it became a story about the candidate’s supposed problems with the truth.

In fact, Mrs. Clinton was accurately repeating the story as it was told to her — and it turns out that while some of the details were slightly off, the essentials of her story were correct. After all the fuss, The Washington Post eventually conceded that “Bachtel’s medical tragedy began with circumstances very close to the essence” of Mrs. Clinton’s account.

And even more important, Mrs. Clinton was making a valid point about the state of health care in this country.

In other words, this was a disgraceful episode. It was particularly sad to see a number of Obama supporters (though not the Obama campaign itself) join enthusiastically in the catcalls against Mrs. Clinton’s good-faith effort to put a human face on the cruelty and injustice of the American health care system.

Look, I know that many progressives have their hearts set on seeing Barack Obama get the Democratic nomination. But politics is supposed to be about more than cheering your team and jeering the other side. It’s supposed to be about changing the country for the better.

And if being a progressive means anything, it means believing that we need universal health care, so that terrible stories like those of Monique White, Trina Bachtel and the thousands of other Americans who die each year from lack of insurance become a thing of the past.

Obama claims he wants universal health care but that's bogus, he runs bogus Harry & Louise ads, the "creative class" [cough] is walking it back, and Elizabeth Edwards says Hillary's plan is better.

And that's why the "creative class" [cough] has abandoned my friend with the bleeding feet to her fate. Go die, working people! But Elizabeth Edwards has a conscience, and she says Hillary's plan is the best:

Edwards — who recently began work as a senior fellow at the liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress — said she believed Clinton's health care plan was more inclusive than that of the Illinois senator.

"You need that universality in order to get the cost savings ... I just have more confidence in Sen. Clinton's policy than Sen. Obama's on this particular issue," [Elizabeth Edwards] said.

I can't imagine why. Hey, Obama's got more money than God, so if he's confident in his fake policy, why isn't he flooding PA with more Harry & Louise ads, and demagoguing his plan, as usual?

Recent concerns in Canada about increasing health care costs being unsustainable are based on flawed analyses. The Conservative Federal government has asserted that the rate of cost increase is more than can be paid out, and that a move towards privatization will increase competition for services and market forces will hold down costs - an assertion based on an erroneous report.

If you want Harry and Louise all over again and a plan that keeps health care a privilege, not a right, and might as well have been written by insurance lobbyists, vote for Obama.

Of course, Obama really can give a good speech.

But is that enough?