What have we learned after Saturday's presidential candidate health care forum?

Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America's Future (where I also blog) led off his analysis with this:

John Edwards was bold, detailed and specific--but didn't diagnose the problem. Barack Obama was vague--but stressed that no president can do it without the people. Dennis Kucinich diagnosed the problem, and pushed immediate transformation. Hillary Clinton, surprisingly, forcefully adopted Kucinich's diagnosis (before he spoke). Put them all together--in the right way--and you have a winning health care plan.

The following was written by Campaign for America's Future Co-Director Roger Hickey and Online Editor Bill Scher

The health care debate has leapt forward in the last few weeks. After the bold health care plan from John Edwards, and the new business-labor coalition Better Health Care Together-- spearheaded by Andy Stern (founder of Wal-Mart Watch) and the CEO of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott-- there is a growing consensus. America needs, and Americans want, heath care for everyone in America.

It is terribly significant that we are forging a broad consensus that everyone should be covered.  Now the debate shifts to the question of how to get there.

To add to the MyDD discussion already generated by the John Edwards health care plan, I wanted to post new statements from Jacob Hacker of "The Great Risk Shift," and Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America's Future.

The New Republic reports today that a core feature of the plan is "the essential idea behind another health care reform plan that has been quietly generating a great deal of enthusiasm among reformers--a plan composed by Yale University political scientist ... Jacob Hacker."

That plan is Health Care for America, which Campaign for America's Future has been promoting debate around.

Jerome Ringo, president of the Apollo Alliance, sent the following to supporters today:

Tomorrow, the new House leaders will take on our Big Oil energy policy. They will take a long overdue first step toward real, sustainable energy independence.

And the best part: it won't cost us a dime. Instead, the House plans to pay for it by reversing the $14 billion handout that previous Congresses lavished on Big Oil.

Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus is firmly establishing himself as the buzzkill of The First 100 Hours.

After dirtying up a minimum wage bill with special interest tax breaks, now he's undermining Dem efforts to pass a bill requiring Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Instead, he wants a bill that merely allows it, but does not require it.

This wouldn't be that big a deal, if we could trust the Bush Administration to act in the best interest of the public.

The first order of business in the House last week was to pass new House ethics rules, including new reporting requirements for congressional trips and earmarks.

But these new reporting requirements will only be good tools to shine a spotlight on corruption if we know how to use them well. So what are they?