Ezra has written a thoughtful follow-up to my complaint that discussions of the role of insurance company in writing our legislation neglect to discuss profit. I agree with parts of it and disagree with others. The most important point Ezra makes–which explains his focus on providers to the exclusion of insurance companies–is this passage:

The insurance industry is not a particularly profitable industry.

In analyses showing why a plan written by the insurance industry is super dooper, neither Matt Yglesias nor Ezra Klein use the word “profit.”

Bad Max doesn’t like to share. Or rather, he doesn’t like to share with his fellow elected officials. Lobbyists on K Street? Bad Max will give them anything.

You’d think they could have hid the fact that WellPoint’s former VP authored the Max Tax plan.

Bad Max’s plan also amounts to a subsidy for Wal-Mart and similar employers, and an incentive for such employers to offer shitty plans their employees can’t use.

Bad Max is asking some middle class families to pay 31% of their income to his health insurance donors–more than they pay to the Federal government.

Here’s how Bad Max’s health care plan stacks up against Good Max’s plan.

Not only was Max Baucus pushing to do the right thing last November, he was pushing to do the right thing in April. So what explains the replacement of Good Max with Bad Max?

Why can’t we have the health care plan some guy named Max Baucus proposed last November, rather than the garbage he’s pitching now?

Jane’s responds to Andrea Mitchell’s flaccid beltway CW with the facts that Mitchell herself should be presenting.