Kerry's plan looks good for those paying private insurance premiums, but maybe you interpret an $800 billion reduction in income for private insurance companies over ten years differently than I do. Or maybe I missed your point entirely.

Think of it like tax cuts: liberals don't care that taxpayers get to keep more money, they worry that the government is getting less. ;)

Ted Kennedy:

Kennedy also said he supports Kerry's health insurance proposal, although he favors a more sweeping approach.

During a late-morning rally with Kerry at Hoover High School, Kennedy praised Kerry's health-care proposal, namely the component that would allow uninsured Americans access to the same type of health insurance members of Congress have.

"John Kerry believes, as I believe, if it's good enough for the members of Congress and good enough for the president of the United States, it's good enough for the people of Des Moines, it's good enough for the people of Iowa," Kennedy told the crowd of roughly 400 in the school gymnasium.

In the interview afterward, Kennedy said he remains a proponent of a single-payer system, the type of government-run universal health care that President Bill Clinton proposed in 1994. Kennedy said he supports Kerry's, which builds on programs without the establishment of a large bureaucracy, because the Clinton plan's failure in Congress made the concept of a single-payer program politically unpopular.

So, the idea is basically that it's still too soon to push it. But let's not assume that the Democrats haven't given up on this goal.