Reply #20: Unfortunately, Obama's campaign position on health care

[Ms. Toad]

was virtually indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's - which followed the Massachusetts plan. Require everyone to buy health insurance and make it "affordable." His flavor was that insurance would only be mandatory for children. That is not a progressive plan. I do hope that the current economic crisis will encourage him to sing a different tune - but I was never under any illusion that his position on health care reform was a reason to vote for him.

No health care is funded by the insurance companies - the funding comes from individuals or employers and is merely passed through by the insurance companies (after adding on enormous administration costs and taking a cut for profit) to the providers. We are the employers of the U.S. senate, and yes - as taxpayers we foot the bill. Senators that lose their job, they lose their health care. That makes it employment based health care. As an employed senator they are entitled to excellent coverage - that is the comparison Obama was drawing - not that it was a single-payer health care.