Joe Paduda, who blogs at Managed Care Matters, says his "gut" may tell him that there's no money for health care reform, but his other organs disagree.

"Hell, if we can afford to give AIG an eighth of a trillion dollars, we can definitely afford big-time health reform," he writes.

Paduda sums up the pre-election health care rumblings on the Democratic side of the Senate—but notes that key Democrats, notably Sen. Kennedy, are reaching out for some bipartisanship as they try not to repeat the myriad mistakes of the 1992-94 health reform initiative.

Naturally nobody expects health care to be easy (as we like to say around here at New America, if it were easy we'd have done it already). But he isn't underestimating Kennedy's ability to get this moving, particularly if Obama wins. Kennedy of course was one of Obama's key early endorsers. So Paduda writes, don't think of these health reform meetings going on as the "last gasp" of an ailing Kennedy. Think of them as "the final roar of the Lion of the Senate."