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The platform statement is pure BS...  it doesn't even recognize that not everyone in america is an employee, and makes it clear that "employer-based" health insurance is the only way that will be considered.

But what kills me is that this completely lame statement is considered stronger than what Obama wanted -- that it was an "honorable accomodation".  

In a draft of the platform, the party described health care as "a shared responsibility between employers, workers, insurers, providers and government. All Americans should have coverage they can afford."

...

 "We believe that as you make health care more affordable, people will be able to buy health care - that's the basic principle. How we get there is a matter of the legislative process." ...

No.  All Americans should have health coverage regardless of their ability to afford it.  You mandate that through the legislative process.  You then take advantage of economies of scale afforded by universality to contain costs.  Otherwise, go home.  

"We believe that as you make health care more affordable, people will be able to buy health care - that's the basic principle."

could have come right out of the mouths of the Republicans, and approaches universality from the wrong starting point - which tells me that the chances of any real progress on universal health care are slim, really slim.

This is a perfect example of the influence of Barack Obama on the platform, bringing to it a big red, flashing-neon sign that says, "Willing to negotiate - nothing is a deal-breaker, no element we can't agree to throw out - just tell us what you'll vote for and we'll come up with a plan."

It's all just so...nice.  And we know that "nice" is responsible for all the major achievments in our history, so I guess we have nothing to worry about.

Maybe I'm just too cynical, but maybe all the gloom and doom from the left flank is just leaving me cold. Eight years of wandering through the desert and watching the horror of the Bush Admin reign supreme, and it seems that there are far too many "progressives" (I'm a liberal, still, and will be to the day they bury me) who'd rather complain about the '08 election before it even gets off the ground. You knew that there were going to be serious questions about what specifics get passed in the legislature. You knew that whoever would be the Democratic nominee would pivot to the center (nearly every one of them has, and the Repubs do this too). Does anyone seriously ponder how much worse it will be if we get a third term for George W. in JSM? Obama is not a shining progressive (though for that matter, neither was anybody not named Edwards or Kucinich, for that matter).  Politics will always be the choice between two people somewhat to the center right/center left of of the electorate.

Let me translate "shared responsibility" -- It means single payer is off the table. Hello, HCAN't! Goodbye, a system that actually works.

I don't blame Clinton's people for not getting better language out of The Lightbringer. It wasn't worth the effort anyhow, because Obama's word isn't good (FISA; offshore oil); and in any case Obama, as other commenters said, polluted the discourse with Harry and Louise ads.

IMO the health care that will be enacted during an Obama administration will be an expanded S=Chip program much like the bipartisan bill passed by Congress and then vetoed by Bush. Also, might get recommendations that so called cost saving measures by insurance companies, hospitals and doctors like computerized medical records etc be implemented etc.

We both thought healthcare was important.  The problem is, neither McCain or Obama will do anything about it.  They don't have the political will or the knowledge that Hillary had about healthcare as a whole.  

Plus, as we all know, Hillary Clinton was a fighter and this meant something to her.  She would have fought, tooth and nail, to see her vision of universal healthcare implemented.  

Does anybody imagine that if Hillary were running, she'd feature it as her most fundamental issue, and her most important differentiator from John McCain?

I'm sure that Obama, in contrast, doesn't want to engage that policy issue as a real differentiator because 1) he doesn't want to have to talk about raising taxes, 2) he sees no major political upside to it, and 3) he doesn't really give a care about it fundamentally. It was, at most, something he embraced in the first place only because he knew it would lose him Democratic votes if he had no positive position on it -- so he and his campaign cranked out some sausage.

Nobody reads it.

Nobody cares.

It never ever influences how the party governs.

Meanwhile, as to Hillary's mandated universal health care plan, as I've mentioned elsewhere, the shoe has not yet dropped regarding the "mandate windfall profits" which health insurers will reap when they sell millions of high-profit policies to relatively young/well consumers who will be forced to buy them. If Hillary doesn't have a "secret plan" up her sleeve, she ought to -- to form an alliance in Congress to engage the insurance industry in negotiations, saying to them, okay boys and girls, you can have these massive windfall profits, or part of them, if you open your books quarterly and agree to use the lion's share of these profits to cover the low income margins" [instead of sandbagging the federal government already deeply in debt to pay for commercial insurance premiums] "and you agree to a reasonable set of consumer protections including caps on premiums, co-pays and deductibles, while allowing insurance companies a reasonable (thin) profit margin across the entire adult population of the United States, using the "mandate windfall profit" as a bargaining chip to set up a commercial insurance system that functions in essence like single-payer but remains commercially oriented similar to the system in Germany, like a well regulated and self-sustaining public utility.

If the insurers balk at this deal, we can say, "Okay we're gonna mosie over and take a close look at single payer," using single payer as an implied threat to force the other end of the deal -- the stick -- while the carrot for insurers is the mandate's financial windfall.