If you read one post on health care reform...

let it be Paul Starr's brief history, showing the extent to which the Dems' bills have incorporated Republican ideas floated over the past half century:

...the Democratic proposals are built around the ideas that Republicans used to favor -- those proposals already are bipartisan compromises. Unfortunately, they are compromises with a Republican Party that no longer exists.

This fundamental truth is not only sad but dangerous. It's no particular compliment to the Democrats to note that this country currently has only one viable political party. The Republican Party is right now neither fringe nor mainstream. It's in some volatile liminal zone between the two, a nativist, militarist, authoritarian, Social Darwinian dreamland.