by Robert Reich
What we learned in August is something we’ve long known but keep forgetting: The most important difference between America’s Democratic left and Republican right is that the left has ideas and the right has discipline. Obama and progressive supporters of health care were outmaneuvered in August — not because the right had any [...]

UPDATED: The US healthcare debate is about cost. It should be about ensuring coverage for all. Commit, as the 22 other richest nations in the world have, to ensuring everyone is covered and you can then make tough “how-to” choices.
This is the real healthcare debate.
Not the big money ‘ginned’ death panels, pull the plug on Grandma, [...]

by Robert Reich
Yesterday the American Medical Association came out against a public option for health care. And yesterday the President reaffirmed his support for it. The next weeks will show what Obama is made of — whether he’s willing and able to take on the most formidable lobbying coalition he has faced so far on [...]

 
by Charley James
In so-called “public service” ads appearing on TV and radio, or in print and on the intertubes, many health insurance companies urge people to stay healthy by quitting smoking. The company that provides a supplemental policy to me that covers things not paid by Canada’s national health even e-mailed a helpful PDF brochure [...]

The advert headline blared: “if he were anyone else he’d be dead.” He is Dick Cheney, age 67, Vice President of the United States, with a bionic reconstructed heart with built-in defribulator to maintain a regular heartbeat. The Vice President joined the government healthcare program in 2001 when he became a federal employee. Had he [...]