Scandinavian countries have the highest quality of life ratings of any others in the world, yet they are the most highly taxed.  They live longer.  They are healthier.  Their infant mortality rate is much lower.  It is also really incredibly hard for infertile couples to adopt because the social safety net is so good that parents rarely give up their children to the state.

Not a passive endorsement, an active one.

Why is that? Senator Kennedy worked with First Lady Clinton advancing S-CHIP. When Bill Clinton killed it and First Lady Clinton supported that decision in speeches, Senator Kennedy kept going.

A coalition of groups got behind S-CHIP and Senator Kennedy once again got the bill before Bill Clinton.  At that point, Hillary Clinton intervened decisively in S-CHIP's favor with the President, and Senator Kennedy thanked her for it.

Now, at that exact same time, State Senator Barack Obama (WaPo) was passing Health Care Reform among other pieces of innovate legislation (NYT) in Illinois:

With the assistance of Senator Jones, Mr. Obama helped deliver what is said to have been the first significant campaign finance reform law in Illinois in 25 years. He brought law enforcement groups around to back legislation requiring that homicide interrogations be taped and helped bring about passage of the state's first racial-profiling law. He was a chief sponsor of a law enhancing tax credits for the working poor, played a central role in negotiations over welfare reform and successfully pushed for increasing child care subsidies.

"I learned that if you're willing to listen to people, it's possible to bridge a lot of the differences that dominate the national political debate," Mr. Obama said in an interview on Friday. "I pretty quickly got to form relationships with Republicans, with individuals from rural parts of the state, and we had a lot in common."

Now, there's alot in those quotes that might have given Senator Kennedy reason to think that Senator Obama had, as you say, done something, that he was worthy of Senator Kennedy's endorsement for President.

To go and celebrate a Potemkin Victory makes a mockery of that value, and, after signing a pledge not to campaign and to accept that there would be no delegates, it's dishonest.

Further, let's say the numbers are very close running to the convention and Florida might decide the outcome.

What you're asking me to do, as a supporter of Barack Obama, is preemptively cede delegates to Senator Clinton by "agreeing" that she won a victory in Michigan or Florida?

No way. Not on your life I won't. And it would make voters think that Barack Obama is a fool if he did so.

It's a transparent move on Senator Clinton's part, and it will likely backfire more with SuperDelegates than it will help her campaign.

But no, just because Senator Clinton celebrates victory doesn't mean she won anything.

The voters in Florida were put in an impossible position by the State Party and the DNC.

That was the whole point. She was celebrating winning zero delegates after having no debates, no door knocking, no lit drops, and no advocacy.

It was fake.

And she was campaigning because, suddenly, after NOT saying she was going to "fight for Floridians" she was suddenly claiming momentum and that she was "on their side."

It didn't work. It was gilding the lily.

Maybe she wins on Tuesday, maybe not.

This is in support of a master narrative that BTD has been throwing down here in almost every post that Obama advocates are somehow inconsistent and disigenuous and "Just hate Hillary."

For BTD to make his point, Klein's actual position is really irrelevant..because, as he admits, the specifics of Edwards plan are also opaque to him.

BTD's main point isn't about Klein or Edwards, it's about his overarching theme that Obama supporters aren't serious about their policy positions..."They just hate Hillary."

Now, Klein had good things to say about Edwards plan...so what was Edward's actual position on employer mandates?

One provision of the Edwards proposal certain to draw fire is a requirement that companies provide health insurance for all workers or pay 6 percent of their payrolls into a government fund to buy insurance for them. This type of "play or pay" program was an element of former President Bill Clinton's failed 1994 health care plan that was shaped in large part by Mrs. Clinton.

Klein addressed exactly this point in his piece:

I need to get back to spraying Zicam and complaining about my cold, but I'd be remiss not to offer a quick rundown of John Edwards's just-released health plan (pdf). The short answer: It's good.

Here's how it works: On first blush, the plan is much like the Wyden initiative, though it puts the onus of the responsibility for funding health coverage on employers, a decision I don't quite understand. The employers can satisfy that responsibility by either providing comprehensive care, or helping employees purchase from a menu of insurance options provided by newly formed, state-run "Health Markets."

Kelin likes Edwards plan overall, but doesn't much like the employer mandates. And here's what Klein had to say about Clinton's Health Care plan on that topic:

Clinton's plan is of the "individual mandate" variety, in which universal coverage is achieved by mandating that every American purchase health care. In order to ensure that that's both possible and affordable, the Clinton plan creates a few new coverage options, reform the insurance industry, limits coverage costs to a percentage of income, and washes your car.

Okay, it doesn't wash your car. It does open the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to everybody, ensuring that anyone can access the same menu of regulated private options that federal employees get. FEHBP is the program that already insures millions of current government employees, including the members of Congress, by offering a variety of regulated private options to choose from. Throwing the doors to that program wide open is the most basic and ubiquitous of coverage solutions.

More importantly, the plan also creates a new public insurance option, modeled off, but distinct from, Medicare. That's a big deal: The public insurer offers full coverage and is open to all Americans without restriction. Public insurance is what I feared her plan would avoid, and instead, she embraced it wholeheartedly

Okay, Klein is neutral on "individual mandates" but Klein really likes opening EFHBP and the public insurance option in Clinton's plan.

So, where does this get us? Obama's plan.

Here's what Klein has to say about Obama's plan:

The plan is centered around a new regulatory agency called the National Health Insurance Exchange, which is both responsible for regulating the insurance industry (more on this in a moment) and administering the new public insurance program Obama's plan creates. That's a big deal -- one of the real tests of seriousness for the new plans is whether they create a public insurance program, and Obama's does. Unlike Edwards' and Jacob Hacker's plans, he doesn't use Medicare as the basis for the program, but instead creates an entirely new public insurer.

Well, first, Klein likes Hillary and Obama's plan for the same reason...(they both initiate a public insurance program independent of medicaid)...however, crucially to this debate, it's a reason NOT included in Edwards plan. (So, yes, BTD doesn't know what he's talking about and it shows. This whole argument is a straw man.)

However, Klein notes that Obama's plan, like Edwards, but unlike Clinton's, had firm employer mandates:

Employers will have to either pay into this market, or pay into the national plan.

Finally, he goes on to say this about the Obama plans lack of an individual mandate, the exact issue BTD is addressing:

A notable omission is any sort of mandate for adults: This is a plan that would make universal coverage affordable and feasible, but it is not a plan that create universal coverage. It will undoubtedly cut down on the number of uninsured, but without some sort of individual or government mandate, it won't create 100 percent coverage. The Obama campaign's decision to omit a mandate is a puzzling one, both from a policy perspective -- you want the largest possible risk pool -- and a political one. His plan, unlike others, is not truly universal, it's simply possibly universal.

But I'm actually less concerned about that then certain other features of the plan.

So, in essence, BTD can't say that Klein is inconsistent because Klein's review of both plans just doesn't put that much emphasis on the exact issue BTD is hammering. Second, Obama and Edwards plans are similar to each other but different from Clinton's on the very point I bring up in my quote  at the top of this long thread. Who do you mandate first? Industry or individuals?

Does the evidence from Klein back up BTD? No.
Is there a clear intellectual dishonesty from Klein on this issue? No.
Is Obama's plan similar to Clinton's on one of the core things Klein gets excited about? Yes.
Is Obama's plan similar to Edwards and dissimilar to Clinton's on the subject I brought up to initate my comment in this debate? Yes.

Now, was it worth going into the weeds on Klein? Sure if you care about health care policy, yes, it's good to know.

But not if you care about the master narrative that Obama is trying to argue. Because it's founded on a deception, a straw man. The very policy preference that Klein favors most is shared by Obama AND Clinton, and the one BTD trumpets is downplayed.

Further, and most relevant to me, something at the core of Edwards and Obama's proposals, that businesses take some responsiblity FIRST for the health care of their employees is included in both Obama and Edwards's plans. (But Klein doesn't seem to think much of that either.) I think this is a crucial issue in this debate.

I'm with the pragmatism expressed in the Ron Brownstein piece I linked to above.

Thats a federal government program that would give everyone more choice, and much more affordability to many.  No one seems to want to deal with the problem of state mandates making the lowest priced policy having to provide Rolls Royce coverage.