Quote of the day, regarding an impending deal to let people from 55 to 64 years old join Medicare: "Medicare is a public program that works, for the most part, as long as we strengthen it and we reform the delivery system," said Mary L. Landrieu, D-La. "People know it; they’re comfortable with it – like, people would say, ‘I don’t want a public option, I want Medicare.’ People aren’t comfortable, in my view, with creating a whole new government-run public something that people don’t know."

(From CQ.com, a subscription service)

Landrieu is one of those self-described centrists who has refused to vote for any health reform with a public option. Never mind that Medicare goes way beyond a public option and well into "socialized medicine" territory. So I guess that for Landrieu and the handful of other Democrats, old socialism is better than any new non-socialism with a slight government sponsorship. Either that or they’re bending their minds like pretzels to protect the profits of private insurers.