There’s no question in our minds that House Republicans will be successful today in voting to repeal health reform legislation. So what happens after the inevitable yelling and the inevitable House vote for repeal? Nothing. The Senate will not vote for repeal and President Obama will certainly veto anything that even smells like repeal. That, [...]

We appreciated this assessment of health reform’s controversial individual mandate provision by William Pewen over at the Health Affairs Blog. He makes some predictions about the future of health reform if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but we’re more interested in his take on the problem with Americans and their health insurance. [...]

Here’s an original thought from a quartet of House Democrats: Those conservatives who are pledging to repeal health care reform should first reject their own taxpayer-subsidized health insurance on principle. Rep. Joe Crowley and three others are lining up like-minded co-signers for a letter asking their counterparts across the aisle to do just that. They [...]

You know that old saying about how even bad PR is good PR? Well, The Nation has a pretty decent argument for its validity. Seems like the more Republicans turn up their messages about the recently passed legislation, the more they’re turning off listeners to their arguments. November will be interesting. That’s for sure.

An interesting poll surfaced yesterday, revealing that – in the days since health reform legislation was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and signed into law by President Obama – more Americans have taken a favorable view of the legislation than they did before the vote. Nearly 50 percent of those polled now say [...]

Our statement has nothing to do with the last-minute deal cut between the White House and Rep. Bart Stupak (D- Mich.). Here’s why the historic vote authorizing health insurance reform is the biggest pro-life vote in history: Fifty-five thousand Americans die every year because of lack of health insurance coverage. Those are deaths that no [...]

Throughout the health care debate, it’s been fascinating to watch opposition responses to each bit of reform-related news. The complete inability of opponents of Democratic reform proposals to see anything positive in the legislation has been simply stunning. How determined were opponents of reform? Determined enough to threaten that legislation promising free assistance to those [...]

We thought this editorial cartoon in the Kansas City Star was pretty good – and not just because we agree with them on that whole Global Warming thing. We also got a chuckle because it hit so close to home in terms of the ongoing health reform debate. We’d rewrite the caption to read, “If [...]

We don’t like the phrase, “It’s now or never,” especially when it comes to the health reform battle. If legislation doesn’t succeed now, it doesn’t mean the nation’s health care system can never be improved. Even with a complete failure by the Democrats, the system could conceivably gradually evolve into something better over time with [...]

The current status of the health reform legislation in the nation’s capital reminds of us the popular quizzes that challenge players to speculate as to whether celebrities are dead yet. If you asked opponents of health reform, they’d surely tell you that – like the failed health reform efforts of 1994 – the current Democratic proposals [...]

In the days following last week’s special election in Massachusetts, it wasn’t surprising at all to hear opponents of health reform announcing that America had – loudly and clearly – told Congress to start over on health reform. But here’s the thing: If the Democrats had barely eked out a win, opponents would have said [...]

Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic said today what a lot of liberals have been saying about the Senate bill. Basically, it’s been stretched and pulled like a gob of saltwater taffy as it morphed into something barely acceptable to barely enough Democrats, but also largely disappointing to a large contingent of other liberals (and [...]

Anyone who thought passage of a health reform bill in 2009 would be easy, given the Democratic majority in Congress, was deluded. To think that all of Congressional Democrats – and the Independents they court – would vote in lock step was just plain fantasy. But even Democrats who knew reform legislation would be all [...]

One of the things that has bugged us for months and months is health care opponents’ preoccupation with the number of pages in the health care bills that have been introduced in the House and Senate. The most recent bill to emerge is the Senate bill unveiled by Harry Reid yesterday and SURPRISE … it’s [...]

When the House passed its version of health reform legislation last week, the development may have sent chills down the spines of those who oppose the Democrats’ proposed solutions. But a quick read-through of Suzy Khimm’s piece in The Treatment yesterday should be equally chilling to folks who think the battle over health reform is [...]

We’re happy to hear folks asking this question: If Democrats succeed in passing health reform legislation with an opt-out public option as included in Harry Reid’s Senate bill, would any states actually opt out? Conservatives seem to like the idea that states could take a pass on a public option provision they dread. But really, [...]

Will Democrats unite to allow an up-or-down vote on health reform legislation? Robert Creamer explained on the Huffington Post this morning why he thinks it’s in Democratic legislators’ best interests to pull together. Creamer’s reasons include, briefly: That Americans have already swung overwhelmingly in support of the public option. A vote to defeat the filibuster [...]

There were squeals of joy and howls of rage when Olympia Snowe crossed the aisle (or as Republicans would say “went over to the Dark Side”) yesterday to vote for the Senate Finance Committee’s version of a health reform bill. But now that it’s done, both sides might be rethinking their outbursts. The Right could [...]

A column by Thomas Frank in the Wall Street Journal made us pause and scratch our heads this week because it prompted one of those questions that we think lots of Americans must be asking themselves. The question is simply this: Are President Obama and his Democratic Party up to no good in this health [...]

Okay, we know that it’s the conservative members of the House that are called “Blue Dogs” (not members of the Senate), but what a perfect visual for the actions of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL party’s put-down of its own senator, Kent Conrad (D-ND). The party’s members recently reaffirmed a commitment to an even much more progressive [...]

This week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus did a head count of its members to see whether House liberals still strongly opposed any health reform bill that would not include a public option. Word from the Hill Thursday indicated that opposition is still plenty strong. Not so strong? Blue Dog opposition to a public option, apparently. [...]

Students of history may get a chuckle when they hear Republicans define Obama’s health care plan as “socialism.”  If we look to the past, we see Obama’s plan is pretty much in line with Republican President Richard M. Nixon’s failed efforts in 1974. Like Nixon, Obama seeks to tweak America’s existing private health care system, [...]

It’s hard enough trying to convince Americans that it’s time for drastic health reform measures when that reform is being fought tooth and nail by the health insurance industry, which today launched a seven-figure advertising campaign to put pressure on moderate Congressional Democrats. The pressure, of course, is to urge them to help kill momentum [...]

Since the health insurance industry stonewalled the Clinton Administration’s attempts to drastically overhaul our trainwreck of a health care system, Americans have been waiting. We’ve been waiting for something nearly miraculous: a convergence of conditions that would include a frightening global economic climate; a national realization that our system is an ineffective, unfair mess; and [...]