Negotiators will need to finesse a proposal for an employer mandate before Congress passes a final health care reform package.

Health care legislation currently under consideration leaves a lot to the states. Should health care reform efforts fail, supporters of a public option should take the blame, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., told Face The Nation on Sunday.

Republicans are reportedly planning to introduce their own comprehensive health care bill.

Both the House and Senate health care bills would cap tax-free health “flex spending” accounts at $2,500.

The notion that an individual mandate is unconstitutional is without merit, the White House believes.

Tyler Cowan tackles the question of why the United States, unlike the rest of the developed world, has never shown much interest controlling health care costs.Ezra Klein gives his take as well.

The Congressional Budget Office scores a significantly watered-down version of Sen. Ron Wyden’s “free choice” amendment. (H/T: TNR’s Jonathan Cohn) More on this later.

No, not really. Just two guys who happen to have the same names.

Still, it didn’t take much for Michael Goldfarb to start frothing.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., first says he opposes  a public option because it will fail, and need to be bailed out by taxpayers.   The next day, he says he opposes the public option because it will be so effective that private insurers won’t be able to compete (this is the “crowd out” argument). But keep in mind, Joe Lieberman is deeply principled.  I know this because all the pundits tell me so.

TPM’s Brian Beutler works his sources on all the drama surrounding and leading up to Reid’s decision  on the public option.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wonders what good a public option will do if nobody with an offer of employer-provided insurance can enroll.  Good question. Wyden’s quest to open the health exchanges to everyone appears to be dead.  At most — and even this will not be easy — he’ll succeed in opening the exchanges to all employers, but not individuals.

A new study has found that, contrary to what scientists and doctors have believed for decades, untreated cancers can shrink, disappear, or exist without doing harm.

Via Ezra Klein, here are two graphs prepared by Rep.  Jim Cooper’s (D-Tenn) staff  illustrating how the House and Senate health bills would subsidize insurance for working families.

Greg Sargent obtained of an internal whip count in the House of a health care bill with a public option tied to Medicare rates. Currently, Pelosi would reportedly lose 47 to 55 Democrats. However, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer believes a bill with a public option using negotiated reimbursement rates could pass the House.

Speaker Pelosi wants to rename the public option. Possibilities include “the consumer option” and the “competitive option.”

Some Kansas lawmakers want to opt out of the public  option before it even becomes law.

TPM DC’s Brian Beutler thinks Olympia Snowe left herself enough wiggle room to support a health care reform bill in the end, even if it includes a public option.

David Rodgers’ analysis in Politico is dead on. The public option is, in part, a”proxy war for the affordability debate.” Many Democrats worry that the subsidies for people to purchase insurance could be inadequate — and a scenario in which Americans are forced to purchase coverage they can’t afford would be an unmitigated disaster.  And it could easily cost Democrats control of Congress. This, in part, explains why support for the public option has gained steam in the last few weeks. Since CBO scores it as a money-saver, Democrats need the strongest public option they can pass in order to pay for the subsidies, and still keep the total cost of the health care bill under $900 billion (as the president has promised to do).

Ezra Klein thinks Baucus “almost sounds like he’s taking credit” for the inclusion of public option in the health care bill. Yup.

The Washington Post looks at the role of the AARP in the debate over health care reform. The GOP has taken aim at the group recently.

The AP story to which I linked above also contains some news that would be a much bigger deal if it weren’t for the public option announcement: AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka has said — to my knowledge, for the first time — that he’s open to a tax on high-cost insurance plans.

To start from the beginning, I should note that I was relieved to find out that the stimulus package signed into law by President Obama in February guaranteed that the government would pick up the tab for 65% of COBRA benefits if you were laid off before Jan. 1, 2010. That provision could really be a life-saver. Keep in mind that COBRA is an extension of the insurance provided by your previous employer. But once laid-off, you have to pay the full premium (since your employer isn’t paying its portion of it anymore). That’s very expensive. Yet under the stimulus law, I’d only have to pay a little over 1/3 of the full premium. That’s doable.

So after I was laid off from my job at CQ, I elected COBRA immediately. I thought I was insured.

But then I got a bill from Ceridian, COBRA’s contracted administrator. And it wanted me to pay for a month of insurance from when I was still working. In other words, my coverage would have lapsed October 1 due to the layoff. But Ceridian’s bill wanted me to pay my premium for all of September. More accurately, it wanted me to pay my September premium again, since I had already paid my September premium out of my biweekly paycheck.

So I called Ceridian, who said they would open an investigation. They sent me an e-mail a few days later saying that I should contact a different company, Conexis. This whole thing was apparently their problem. So I called Conexis, who told me that:

1) I had never actually elected COBRA.

2) I should never have received a bill from Ceridian.

3) That my employer had given them the incorrect address for me, which is why I never received anything in the mail from them.

4) I needed to go to Conexis’ website and elect COBRA.

So I did. All over again. Then I got another bill from Ceridian, demanding to know why I haven’t paid for September, October, and November’s premiums. So I called Ceridian again. And they say they are opening another investigation and will contact me in 3-5 business days.

And here’s the kicker — they told me not to pay bill until the investigation is complete and I receive a revised bill. And they also told me I would remain uninsured until I paid my bill. Get it? I’ve been uninsured for a month without knowing it, and I will remain uninsured until I pay my bill. Which they tell me I should NOT do.

I love many things that are uniquely American. But maybe our health care system is unique to us because everyone else looked at it and decided it’s kind of insane.

Democrats believe they now have the votes to pass a health care bill with some form of a public option.

The White House pushes back hard against reports that the president is not on the same page o the public option as Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., calling those reports “absolutely false.”

Jonathan Cohn has a must-read piece on tension on health care reform between Senate liberals and the White House.

Efforts to protect the country from H1N1 are off to a rocky start.

The Senate Finance Committee bill would require all hospitals to disclose standard charges for services.

A case against a triggered public option.

Evidence supports the long-held belief that garlic can help fend off the common cold.

The New York Times apparently has a weekly health news quiz!

Still, I think he is far too dismissive of cooking’s potential to do a lot of good. And this strikes me as somewhat of a straw man argument: “The good news is that there’s no real reason to think that food you prepare yourself is for some reason intrinsically healthier than food someone else prepares for you.”

Well, sure. But nobody, to my knowledge, is making this case. What some food writers and activists are saying, is that home-cooked food is healthier than the highly processed, nutrient-deficient food sold at McDonalds. And fast food constitutes many of the meals Americans eat outside the home.

Ta-Nehisi Coates takes issue, to some degree, with Yglesias’ post. Yet he also writes: “It seems rather perverse to say, ‘I won’t be able to watch my kid’s soccer practice because I have to finish brining the turkey.’”

Again, I don’t think anyone is arguing that parents should forgo their kids’ soccer games to brine the perfect roast turkey. But a pasta sauce can be made in the 12 minutes it takes to boil spaghetti. The idea is not to make everyone become gourmands.

Yglesias would rather convince the “purveyors of processed foods” to sell healthier products. Fine by me, but that strikes me as an even steeper climb than convincing people to cook.