It was in the Senate this year where the goal of meaningful health care reform gave way to a bill that feels as if it was written by the insurance company lobbyists.
Micah Sifry has written a widely discussed essay about the denuded Obama grassroots movement. But if Obama's online movement was fueled by a myth, then why bemoan its loss?
The real story of the conservative movement in 2009 is that it has been a colossal failure where it counts: effecting policy.
Right now, the President may appear to have a meager stack of chips in front of him, but it's because his entire bankroll is in the pot. And as it turns out, he's holding a couple of aces.
Normally you don't win anything when you negotiate with yourself. You barter yourself into a worse and worse position. I see an exception. Sam Stein ...
There is cause for concern that one of the most pernicious features of our current insurance system -- lifetime and annual insurance coverage caps -- may in fact not disappear.
Small community-based labs like Brooklyn's Modern Diagnostics may be forced to cut services to seniors, especially those in nursing homes, due to health care reform legislation.
It's not single payer. It's not perfect. And it may not feel like a "win." But it's not supposed to; that wasn't the point. In a principled negotiation no one wins, but no one loses, either.
Politicians do things because they are forced to do things, not out of the goodness of their own hearts, and if there ever is a secret plan, it's usually to pull one over on the public.
It's time once again for Obama Poll Watch -- our monthly look back at Obama's approval ratings for the previous month.
It's resolution time. The new year has come and the booze-fiends are taking some time off, the philanderers are planning quality family time and delet...
We need to stop being afraid that missing the diagnosis of a disease will send us directly to the morgue. As we change focus from getting a diagnosis to staying healthy, our health will improve.
Soon every American will be forced to purchase private insurance at several times the cost (and rising) of their counter-parts in developed world.
At the beginning of this new year I am experimenting, instead of resoluting. (I know, it's not a real word. But it just sounds right.) I'm interested in how technology can play a role in behavior change.
The prescription drug industry in the United States is at a critical juncture. And Pfizer, the world's largest and wealthiest biopharmaceutical company, is not in any way immune to market pressures.
To the usual list of new year's resolutions, most of them having to do with bettering ourselves in one way or another, I invite you to consider adding a new one: let's quit making so many mistakes.
Obviously this process has been as ugly as that which attends most significant legislation. To suggest it is any uglier is nothing but a passive-aggressive attack against reform.
Members of the general public have little to no idea about how their health care system actually works, what is wrong with it, or what--good research suggests--might begin to fix it.
Allowing the use of obstructionist techniques like the filibuster in the Senate is undemocratic, anti-democratic, and just a plain insane way to make public policy.
Small business is the American dream. But if the government continues to ignore the realities small business owners face, it will successfully extinguish the dream.
In our roles as objective political analysts, Kristol and I foresee the same results from a corporatist-dominated Democratic Party. Of course as political partisans, Kristol sees it with glee and I see it with dread.
