So I've got three pairs of tickets to see former Labor Secretary Robert Reich at 8 p.m. tonight at the Meyerhoff for the Baltimore Speakers Series. If you want a pair, check out Reich's blog post on how to pay for expanded health coverage and then leave a comment here on whether he's on target or full of baloney or holds the wrong premise (that we need expanded health care). I'll use random.com to do a random drawing among all the decent comments, and winners can pick up the tix at the Meyerhoff will-call window tonight.

Reich opposes the measure to raise money by taxing "Cadillac" health plans:

In any event, I thought a major purpose of health-care reform was to get more care to more people, not to cut it back. Even employees who get extra dollars of wages to make up for the cutbacks won’t necessarily plow those wages back into health care.

He's for the surtax on the rich in the House bill.

But why even take these chances when the House bill simply and cleanly goes after the top 1 percent? It’s not as if couples earning over a million can’t afford to pay the tax. When I last looked, the top 1 percent was taking home a record 23 percent of total income. If anything, the Great Recession is widening the gap. It’s bonus time on Wall Street again. But the middle class is taking a beating.