He didn't get ....  

Rather than go knee jerk, here are the top three percentage gainers on the NYSE:

1.Marine Products Corporation (boats)
2.Zale Corporation (jewelry)
3.Treehouse Foods Inc (private label food service)

Top Three on the Nasdaq

1.Chattem Inc (makers of Gold Bond, IcyHot, and Dexatrim)
2.Ada Es Inc (environmental solutions)
3.Tech Ops Sevcon Inc (battery powered vehicles)

In reality, the Healthcare sector sits right in the middle at plain ol' average year to date:

WASHINGTON -- Slumping in the polls and struggling to pass climate and financial legislation, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are counting on an historic health care victory to buoy their electoral prospects in 2010.

But Republicans argued Sunday that the issue is breaking their way, and liberal infighting indicates the party leadership has to win back its base along with the larger electorate.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats a win on the health issue will reverse the slide in public opinion, just as passage of another controversial proposal, the North American Free Trade Agreement, lifted President Bill Clinton in the polls.

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the last Democratic holdout, walks outside the Capitol on Saturday, following his agreement to support health-care legislation.
The apparent success by Senate Democrats this weekend in securing the necessary votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of health care before Christmas will offset setbacks on climate change and financial industry regulation, Democrats say.

"The reality, I think, will trump poll numbers in the dead of winter as this debate is going on," White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

"We're governing through difficult times," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I think we're going to be in a better place" when the midterm elections arrive.

Republicans say public opinion is on their side.

"If Democrats want to run on this, then we invite them to go ahead and do so. The Obama-Pelosi agenda continues to feed into the emerging 2010 narrative that this is a Congress that spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much," Ken Spain, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Sunday.

Last week's Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll not only showed a substantial majority opposed to the plan, but for the first time, it showed a plurality favoring the status quo over passage.

Mr. Obama is taking heat from the left and the right on health. The president's quest for a 60th vote for the Senate health bill has drawn criticism from liberal Democrats who say the White House has capitulated to conservatives in the party.

"We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate," Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) said in a post on his Web site.

The Democratic leadership is particularly relying on a health victory as other domestic priorities struggle. The failure of the United Nations climate summit to reach a binding accord could cripple Mr. Obama's chances of securing legislation to limit greenhouse-gas emissions, even after many House Democrats took a politically painful vote for legislation to cap carbon emissions.

Mr. Obama's standing with American voters has fallen more dramatically in his first year than any recent president, in part because he was so popular at the outset, but also because voters perceive he has not accomplished much, said Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

His 47% approval rating is just the start of his problems, pollsters say. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also found the first real evidence that Mr. Obama's personal bond with Americans -- his likability -- has been battered by high unemployment, Democratic infighting and months of bickering over health care, Just 29% of Americans now say they feel "very positive" about the president, down from 36% in October and 47% in February.

And at least some of that bleeding is coming from Democrats; his 86% approval rating in September is now down to 79% among Democrats.

It is pure propaganda intended to make us think that Dean is changing his mind and we should support this bill.

They quoted Dean as saying that if the Senate could achieve the benefits of a public option without a public option, he's "all ears".
They leave it at that and then go on to speculate (propagandize) why Dean "changed his position" (which he clearly did not).  They left out that Dean added that he didn't think it was possible to achieve the goals of a public option without the actual public option.

how exactly is that different from preex peeps paying more?

that totally defeats the PURPOSE of the preex ban!! to avoid higher costs! if they can charge someone with a preex 15x more than everyone else, they may in many cases be better off WITHOUT coverage

now those VERY ILL will be FORCED to pay MORE, no CAP on how much more and they cant CHOOSE to pay cash to their providers instead

Link

The health economists and independent legal experts who study the issue, however, don't believe that's true. They say that malpractice liability costs are a small fraction of the spiraling costs of the U.S. health care system, and that the medical errors that malpractice liability tries to prevent are themselves a huge cost- both to the injured patients and to the health care system as a whole.

"It's really just a distraction," said Tom Baker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and author of "The Medical Malpractice Myth." "If you were to eliminate medical malpractice liability, even forgetting the negative consequences that would have for safety, accountability, and responsiveness, maybe we'd be talking about 1.5 percent of health care costs. So we're not talking about real money. It's small relative to the out-of-control cost of health care."

Insurance costs about $50-$60 billion a year, Baker estimates. As for what's often called "defensive medicine," "there's really no good study that's been able to put a number on that," said Baker.

Krauthammer cited a study by the Massachusetts Medical Society that found that five out of six doctors said they ordered additional tests, procedures and referrals to protect themselves from lawsuits. He also relies on a much-criticized study from the libertarian Pacific Research Institute on the civil justice system to conclude that "defensive medicine" wastes more than $200 billion a year.

Baker is skeptical, and makes the point that "defensive medicine" is not the same thing as wasteful medicine. "Like defensive driving, some defensive medicine is good," he said. "To change behavior. When you drill down those studies, you see that what it means is, doctors are more careful with patient records. They spend more time with the patient. They're more careful to say hello and goodbye to the patient. That's good."

Other health economists agree that "defensive medicine" is not the main driver of costs, and malpractice liability reform is not a panacea.

"If you were to list the top five or ten things that you could do to bring down health care costs that would not be on the list," said Michelle Mello, a professor of Law and Public Health at Harvard.

Still, that doesn't mean the medical liability system we now have is a good one. Mello estimates the costs of so-called "defensive medicine" to be far less than Krauthammer does -- around $20 billion a year. "So there's some savings to be had and frankly the health reform package has not come up with a lot of ideas for major savings."