The battle lines on policy going forward from Tsunami Tuesday have been drawn on the question of a health-care mandate.

Hillary Clinton (backed by the influential Paul Krugman) insists that mandates are the only way to achieve universal coverage.

Obama, with a greater emphasis on personal responsibility for adults, promises to make policies universally affordable, but would not garnish wages to enroll anyone in an insurance plan against their will.

It’s an important distinction, both politically and from a policy perspective.

Krugman and others argue that if you don’t enroll everyone, the costs for those in the system remain somewhat higher, elevated by healthy adults choosing not to share in the costs of treating sick ones.

Obama’s argument against mandates is that unless you can first guarantee reasonably priced premiums, you will likely end up mandating the impossible, forcing broke families to spend money they don’t have on insurance they can’t afford.

The crux of the Clinton plan is a promise to cap insurance premiums at a “certain percentage” of income.

I asked Clinton’s two top spokesmen today, Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson, on a conference call for a ballpark figure of what the percentage might be.

They could not answer the question.

They referred me to the policy folks at the Clinton campaign, who were unavailable to take my call.

So here’s the open question to the Clinton campaign: What is the fair percentage of income that any American can be forced to pay for health care?

Is it 10 percent of income? Is it 20 percent? Is it 40 percent?

The devil is in that detail.

Sitting = civility?

• This discussion of health care is good and deep and civil. Hillary’s trying to paint Obama on the wrong side of “Core Democrat” — a hard argument to make when Teddy Kennedy is Obama’s new BFF

• Obama contrasting himself to McCain’s flip/flop on Bush’ tax cuts is a good line of attack.

• Hillary looks a little dazed in her health care details. Obama’s not um-ing and ah-ing like he so often does in these debates.

• God I’m glad Lost is on on the East Coast — Rob Reiner, George Costanza, Aaron Sorkin(?)… The Republicans got Ronald Reagan’s jet, the Dems get the Kodak Theater and Hollywood on parade. At least George Soros isn’t in the audience.

• Obama seemed to win on points in this immigration debate.

• Both Obama and Clinton are doing well tonight. But the rap on Obama is that he’s a soaring orator but doesn’t have a deep grasp of the issues. He’s more than holding his own in this deep and detailed debate. This is a case where a tie goes to the rookie.

• Obama’s funny tonight — the line about Mitt Romney’s return on his investment in the campaign is classic.

• Pierce Brosnan! God, this should be a drinking game.

• Ugly Betty! With a Hillary pin!

• Strong candidate for Obama’s line of the night: “I don’t just want to end the war. I want to end the mindset that got us into the war in the first place.”

• Why does Wolff feel its his duty to call “swipes?”

• The gay-bashing Grey’s anatomy guy! With a goatee.

• Good Levin amendment question. Why didn’t Hillary vote to have Bush return to the U.N.? Topher Grace! looks skeptical of Hillary’s answer.

• Obama line-of-the-night contender: On Petraeus’s successes in Iraq: “We’ve set the bar so low it’s buried in the sand at this point.”

• Obama just hit the ball out of the park on why he’d be a better nominee on national security. He’s doing a remarkable job of projecting himself as a candidate against McCain rather than Clinton tonight.

• Hillary just gave about a seven minute, two-part non-answer for why she didn’t make a mistake in voting to go to war.

• Obama has gotten skilled at making his counter points subtly enough that Clinton doesn’t get another whack at it. He said her vote was to go to war “potentially.” It had the same effect of saying she voted to go to war, without Hillary being given another 30 seconds.

For Iowa’s paper of record it came down to substance over sizzle.

Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence. Each time we met, she impressed us with her knowledge and her competence.

Best laughline:

(As president, when she makes a mistake, she should just say so.)

Los Angeles Times

Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.

I’m not sure which is the most surprising fact from this story about the origins of AIDS — that the disease in humans pre-dates WWII, or that HIV first came to America in 1969.

So in addition to telling America last week that Global Warming is good for you, Presidential spokesperson Dana Perino insisted that the White-House’s edits to the Senate testimony of CDC Chief Julie Gerberding had not “watered down” the facts.

As we can see from the unedited version, that’s true. The document wasn’t watered down, it was water-boarded… until it rendered the version of facts the White House wants you to hear.

Let’s take a look at a few of the inconvenient truths that the censors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue found too objectionable to include:

Global warming will cause Katrina-like storms:

Catastrophic weather events such as heat waves and hurricanes are expected to become more frequent, severe, and costly.

Global warming will bring malaria and dengue to the states:

Climate change is likely to alter the current geographic distribution of some vector-borne and zoonotic diseases… such as plague, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, malaria, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and dengue fever; some may become more frequent, widespread, and outbreaks could last longer

Global warming might kill grandpa:

The United States is expected to see an increase in the severity, duration, and frequency of extreme heat waves. This, coupled with an aging population, increases the likelihood of higher mortality as the elderly are more vulnerable to dying from exposure to excessive heat. Midwestern and northeastern cities are at greatest risk.

Global warming makes more smog, lung disease:

Higher surface temperatures, especially in urban areas, encourage the formation of ground-level ozone. Ozone can irritate the respiratory system, reduce lung function, aggravate asthma, and inflame and damage cells that line the lungs. In addition, it may cause permanent lung damage and aggravate chronic lung diseases.

Global warming means water-shortages in the West:

The west coast of the United States is expected to experience significant strains on water supplies as regional precipitation declines and mountain snowpacks are depleted.

And — particularly inconvenient given the current so-Cal conflagrations — global warming means more wild fires!

Forest fires are expected to increase in frequency, severity, distribution, and duration.

It’s hard to be shocked anymore by the administration’s bald contempt for science and human health. But this what happens when you outsource global warming policy to Dick Cheney.

I’m not normally in the business of reviewing documentaries, but this one has personal resonance for me.

Short version: Do yourself a favor tonight at 9PM and check out A Summer in the Cage on the Sundance Channel.

Long version continues after the jump:

Buddy flicks come in all shades and flavors, but Ben Selkow’s film is probably the world’s first guy movie about manic depression. It is also an exceptional and deeply humanizing look at bipolar disorder, which afflicts roughly five percent of Americans… and probably someone you know.
(more…)

House Republicans just shored up enough votes to uphold Bush’s SCHIP veto.