This is what you got for 6 years of time and money supporting Democrats-

A middle class family of four making $66,370 will be forced to pay $5,243 per year for insurance. After basic necessities, this leaves them with $8,307 in discretionary income – out of which they would have to cover clothing, credit card and other debt, child care and education costs, in addition to $5,882 in annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for which families will be responsible.  Many families who are already struggling to get by would be better off saving the $5,243 in insurance costs and paying their medical expenses directly, rather than being forced to by coverage they can’t afford the co-pays on.

Read it and weep suckers.

And then realize that the reason “health care” was the top priority is that it had the greatest public support and least resistance.

What do you think is going to happen with financial reform and global warming?

Welcome to the new Black Plague, the new Dark Ages.

And it has nothing to do with the melanin of our President.

Just his policies.

As I said before- do you see ‘meta’ in this?

Well, there’s a reason they call this March Madness.

It’s been insanely complicated to even set up this table which is organized by viewing time for your convenience.  Over 20 hours it took me, I hope you appreciate it.

There is only one channel, CBS, which means they are going to jump around from game to game in a random manner dictated by the Sports Director (thus the name).  I’m not even going to attempt to live blog it except for the random comment or 60.

Slackers.

I’ll attempt to update the results as they come in, and the second half of the round of 64 comes tomorrow.  This weekend is the round of 32 and it’s going to take me just as much time to prepare and I’m not going to be around Saturday night (hopefully) because I’m going to be visiting a dog that bites my shoes and talking about Science Fiction.

After that I may have more interest if any of my favorite teams (Syracuse and Michigan State) emerge un-upset though I’m not predicting anything except early exits for either of them.  I’ll keep rooting for The Big East (the best conference in Basketball!) until they all lose (which is sure to come).

Kansas v. Duke in the final.  Kansas wins.  Yawn.

Or you could go with Armando’s brackets.

It’s Not That the Health Care Bill Does Too Little Good, It’s That It Does Too Much Harm

By: Jon Walker Wednesday March 17, 2010 1:41 pm

The Senate bill further entrenches the private health insurance system. It continues the terrible pattern of privatizing our social safety net in such a way that business skims 20% off the top. It makes sure the big, life saving medications of the future remain incredibly expensive, so as to enrich the drug industry. It takes a giant step towards eroding women’s reproductive rights. It wastes hundreds of millions to fortify the same, broken health care system that is crushing our economy. The worst part is I don’t see anything in this bill that might serve as a path to real reform. There is no public option or Medicare buy-in. There is no proper state single payer waiver. There is no mechanism to move to an all-payer system and/or a clear path to force for-profit companies out of the health insurance market.

Fortunately-

House Democrats scramble to ensure adequate deficit reduction in health bill

By Lori Montgomery, Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Democrats hoped to receive the Congressional Budget Office report on the legislation’s budgetary impact late Tuesday night. Because Democrats are using special budget rules, known as reconciliation, to protect the package from a Republican filibuster, the measure must reduce the deficit by at least $2 billion over the next five years and avoid increasing the deficit in any year thereafter. Under normal circumstances, that rule would require the bill simply to contain enough revenue-raising provisions to offset new spending. But, like so much else in the health-care debate, this time it is more complicated.

Instead of being measured against current law, the deficit-reduction potential of the “fixes” package will be measured against the Senate bill, which must be passed by the House before the Senate can approve the fixes. The Senate bill would trim $118 billion from the deficit over the next decade and hundreds of billions of dollars in the following 10 years. For the fixes package to comply with reconciliation rules, it must also promise significant long-term deficit reduction, aides said.

Even with Kucinich-

New Health Care Whip Count: Still 191 Yes, 206 No (205-209 with Leaners)

By: David Dayen Wednesday March 17, 2010 11:34 am

In fact, there is some slippage-

Jerry Costello Flips into the Stupak Bloc

By: David Dayen Wednesday March 17, 2010 1:14 pm

However, the abortion language was always going to be a problem for the Illinois lawmaker, and this is a fairly clear sign that he has returned to the Stupak bloc and out of the “Stupak-curious” realm. So add another no vote to the big board. With leaners, you’re at 205-210, with Democrats able to lose only 5 of the remaining uncommitted 16:

But there is a solution-

A Public Option Would Sure Fix Democrats’ CBO Troubles

By: Jon Walker Wednesday March 17, 2010 12:30 pm

Why have we not yet seen a reconciliation bill with a final CBO score? It needs to be made public today if they want to have it online for 72 hours before a planned Saturday vote. The answer seems to be that they are having trouble putting together a reconciliation bill that the CBO will project as saving a sufficient amount of money.

There is, of course, a very easy solution to the House Democrats’ CBO trouble. They could add a public option or Medicare buy-in. The CBO projects that even a very weak and restricted public option would save the government $25 billion. A stronger but still restricted public option would save roughly $110 billion. Those savings would be more than large enough to produce an acceptable CBO score.

Of course, Democrats are not going to include a public option because it would ruin bipartisanship, we need Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Dick Durbin would whip against it, the Senate does not have the votes, the Senate has the votes the House does not, it might delay the bill Obama traded it away to the for-profit hospitals in a backroom deal. Instead, I suspect that they will make up the loss by either raising more taxes or cutting much-needed aid to students and community colleges.

Have fun explaining that move Democrats. Go home and tell your constituents that not only did you deny them the public option they overwhelming want, but you decided to take money from low income college students, and use it to protect the profits of the private health insurance industry.

You can listen to it here.

Huh?  Do you see ‘Meta’ in the title or tags?

Nope, it’s the start of the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship which should be a little more interesting than the Women’s side where I confidently predict the Lady Huskies will romp to their 5th undefeated season and 7th Championship (still 1 behind Tennessee’s record 8).

Tonight’s Play In game, starting at 7:30 pm on ESPN is between Arkansas (Pine Bluff) 16 – 15 and Winthrop 19 – 13.  The winner advances to the South Region 16th seed where they will face Duke Friday in the 7:25 game on CBS.

The round of 64 is happening Thursday and Friday, the round of 32 Saturday and Sunday.  The fact of the matter is I’m really not quite sure how to blog it, so if anyone wants to jump in and volunteer I’m more than happy to let them show me the way.

In the interests of full disclosure I’m not much interested in any teams except Syracuse and Michigan State and I expect them both to make early exits.  I suppose I’ll try and summon some enthusiasm for whatever Big East team lasts the longest, I predict Georgetown because they have another monster Center.