Some selected user comments from the New York Times and Washington Post on yesterday’s news that Harry Reid will include a public option–with a provision for states to opt out–in the final health care bill

This whole debate tells me that the next thing that needs to be reformed are the rules of the Senate. Reputable polls shows sizeable majorities favor the public option….Yet, it supposedly requires 60 votes in the Senate to pass what this majority wants and voted for. Where’s is the will of the people in all this? The will of the industry and lobbies is well served. Lobbyists give massive amounts of money to influence the GOP and a few Blue Dogs, and the people are left out. Pass a strong public option then reform the Senate.
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The “public option” is not a true “public option” if it isn’t available until 2013 and if it isn’t available to those with insurance. How can a plan which is so hobbled compete with private insurers?———————————————————————————————————————–
The entire Opt-Out scheme is an example of the Senate, and particularly Mr. Reid, acting irresponsibly. Had this happened when tMedicare was passed, it would be a shambles.
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Does anyone think that an organization authorized and funded by Congress to make decisions on payment for claims is going to deny a claim by a patient, doctor, hospital, equipment manufacturer, or drug manufacturer located in Harry Reid’s district or contributing to his campaign fund? Or that of any other influential member of Congress? Cost containment indeed!

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Well by now you are aware that the death of the public option was greatly exaggerated. Long story short, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will include a government-run insurance option in the final bill, but with an opt-out provision for individual states.

This post by economics professor Bruce Webb from the Economics blog Angry Bear posits that any opt-out by states is basically unenforceable. Here is the money quote, which comes at the end:

Unless states can mandate that all individuals and employers purchase insurance in-state in addition to whatever coverage they may have through another state I just don’t see how opt-out does anything but prevent insurance sales on your own state exchange.

Which is why I don’t think supporters of the PO have much to worry about as concerns Opt-Out. It seems to just be a sop thrown to more conservative states who don’t want to get tinged with accusations of collaboration with socialism (or something). From a mechanical standpoint I just don’t see how you enforce this.

The full post below…

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The blog Business Pundit runs a regular feature called This Week’s Weird Jobs, in which it posts unusual items culled from help wanteds across the country, some of which offer pay not always commensurate with the task advertised. A sampling:

Sacramento: Foster care for my cat

I am in the Navy and I need someone to take my cat in for 6 months while I am gone for training. She really has a problem with children and spazzy people. She is a pretty chill cat. It just takes an adjustment period for her. I clip her nails and she doesn’t scratch on stuff. I don’t guarantee that she will let you clip her nails, but you can try.

Compensation: $150 per month, plus food…kitty litter…and medical if needed

FLA: Actors needed for Zombie attraction

We are currently looking for actors to fill positions of Doctor Jones. This is a seasonal position!
Your job will be to act as a very paranoid and eccentric doctor through densely wooded trails, as guests find their way through a total immersion action adventure. There will be lines that will need to be memorized and be able to scream VERY loud.

Pay will be $7.25 an hour.

Minnesota: Plumb for Exposure and a Free Meal!

I’m just getting started in my new home and I’m looking for plumbers to come in for 1 to 2 hours a night to get exposure for your plumbing and a frozen pizza. The old owners used to go for galvanized, but I’m thinking my fixtures might like some copper or PEX. This is a great opportunity to show off your plumbing skills to everyone who ever craps at my house.
I don’t have any materials here, so be sure to bring your own pipes, tools and whatever else you need to really plumb your best.

If your first night goes well, you’ll be considered for some paying plumbing in the future. Unless my calendar is already full of plumbers willing to work for free.

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Seen on Craigslist, San Francisco Bay Area in May, 2008:

Nemesis required. 6-month project with possibilty to extend (inner sunset / UCSF)

I’ve been trying to think of ways to spice up my life. I’m 35 years old, happily married with two kids and I have a good job in insurance. But somethings missing. I feel like I’m old before my time. I need to inject some excitement into my daily routine through my arm before its too late. I need a challenge, something to get the adrenaline pumping again. An addiction would be nice, but, in short, I need a nemesis. I’m willing to pay $350 up front for you services as an arch enemy over the next six months. Nothing crazy. Steal my parking space, knock my coffee over, trip me when Im running to catch the BART and occasionaly whisper in my ear, “Ahha, we meet again”. That kind of thing. Just keep me on my toes. Complacency will be the death of me. You need to have an evil streak and be blessed with innate guile and cunning. You should also be adept at inconsicuous pursuit. Evil laugh preferred. Send me a photo and a brief explanation why you would be a good nemesis.

British accent preferred.

Compensation: $350 up front

Thing is, as a nemesis, I’d take that $350 and disappear.

More weird help wanteds here.

McDonald’s is closing in Iceland because the collapse of the country’s currency has doubled the cost of importing the ingredients the fast-food chain uses.

Around the world, though, the Golden Arches is still a golden goose. September sales were up 5% as “consumers sought low-cost meals,” according to Forbes.

But we don’t need a quarterly report to tell us that McDonald’s is still going strong in the U.S. We know that from this post from the blog Weather Sealed:

…just how far away can you get from our world of generic convenience? And how would you figure that out?

As I hurtled down the highway, a pair of golden arches crept over the horizon, and the proverbial lightbulb smacked me in the forehead. To gauge the creep of cookie-cutter commercialism, there’s no better barometer than McDonald’s – ubiquitous fast food chain and inaugural megacorporate colonizer of small towns nationwide.

So, I set out to determine the farthest point from a Micky Dee’s – in the lower 48 states, at least. This endeavor required information, and the nice folks at AggData were kind enough to provide it to me: a complete list of all 13,000-or-so U.S. restaurants, in CSV format, geolocated for maximum convenience. From there, a bit of software engineering gymnastics, and…

Behold, a visualization of the contiguous United States, colored by distance to the nearest domestic McDonald’s!

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The latest Auto-Tune the News was released recently, this one dealing in part with health care. Perhaps you haven’t yet seen this feature, in which different news events are set to song and…well…it’s kind of hard to explain. Just watch…

Tune in on Twitter, too.

Saturday was International Day of Climate Action. From the New York Times:

On Saturday, (activists) tried something new with the goal of prodding countries to get serious about reaching an international climate accord: a synchronized burst of more than 4,300 demonstrations, from the Himalayas to the Great Barrier Reef, all centered on the number 350.

For some prominent climate scientists, that is the upper limit for heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. If the gas concentration exceeds that for long, they warn, the world can expect decades of disrupted climate patterns, rising sea levels, drought and famine. The current concentration is 387 parts per million.

Organizers said their goal, in the prelude to global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, was to illustrate the urgent need to cut emissions by pointing out that the world passed the 350 mark two decades ago.

Here is 350.org’s Flickr photostream, where you’ll find pictures from around the world from Saturday’s actions.

A little guerilla musical theater from the Billionaires for Wealthcare YouTube channel. Performed in the middle of an AHIP convention meeting. That’s AHIP as in America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry lobbying group.

Thanks to our sister site EconomyStory.org for scouting this out.

The journal Health Affairs has posted another in a series of health policy briefs designed to summarize the key issues in the debate. Calling any of these policy analyses “brief” may be pushing it, but if you have the time and patience to wade through them, they can help clarify the various issues in play.

The latest is called Health Insurance Reforms and its most interesting component is a comparison of the similarities and differences between the various congressional bills that must now be melded into one final piece of legislation.

Here are some of the new requirements and limitations on health insurers (or, put another way, the rights of their customers) stipulated in all of the bills:

• Coverage would have to be sold to anybody who applied for it, regardless of health status. This is the provision known as guaranteed issue.

• Renewability of coverage would have to be guaranteed, which means that policies that are sold to individual policy holders or to a small business would have to be renewed from one year to the next.

• Coverage could not exclude payment of claims for treatments involving an individual’s pre-existing medical conditions. For example, an insurer could not sell a policy to a person with hypertension that explicitly did not cover claims related to his or her high blood pressure.

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Images courtesy of the recession. Click on each to see it full size. And for more pictures, see our galleries #1 and #2 and our post on Slate’s Shoot the Recession Project.