Last February, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana) asked the White House to appoint his girlfriend and former staffmember, Melodee Hanes, as Montana's U.S. Attorney.

As chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus has led the opposition of a handful of moderate Democrats to President Barack Obama's proposal for...

Acorn is getting a bum rap -- in the news media, among politicians, and even by some foundations.

The attacks are worrisome not just because they have harmed an effective grass-roots organization but also because they show how the nation's increasingly polarized political environment, exacerbated by the news media, can...

In the battle over healthcare reform, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the former Democrat turned independent, and Democratic Senators Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad have at least two things in common. They all oppose a public option in healthcare reform, but each is nevertheless...

Bess Lomax Hawes, who died Friday at 88, taught thousands of people how to play the guitar. She didn't have a video, or a TV show, or a website, or even an instructional manual. She had a technique.

In the late 1940s, she and her husband Butch were living in...

Whoever picked the name "Humana" for the health insurance giant had a great sense of humor. The word suggests a company engaged in humanitarian pursuits, or at least one with a priority on human beings. Had the marketing genius in charge of picking a name for the corporation been more...

The escalating battle over health insurance reform is taking place on three fronts. The debate over "who should pay?" for reform has so far taken a back seat to the fight over the public option and the struggle over requiring insurance companies to end their practice of denying coverage to...

In the past few days, the health insurance industry's outrageous greed has been nakedly exposed.

After pretending for months to cooperate with the Obama administration and Democrats to secure a reasonable health reform bill, the industry's CEOs and lobbyists on Sunday double-crossed their one-time political allies by openly attacking...

Stephen J. Hemsley is one of the most powerful people you've never heard of. But Health Care for America Now (HCAN) hopes to change that.

Hemsley is the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest insurance company in terms of revenue. Last year it made $75 billion...

First Big Business, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs, the Religious Right, the Wall Street Journal, Mitch McConnell, and Karl Rove came for ACORN, and the Democrats did not speak out -- because they were not ACORN.

Then they came for SEIU, and the Democrats did...

Wendell Potter and Natalin Sarkisyan are two of Edward Hanway's worst nightmares.

Hanway is the CEO of Cigna, the health insurance giant that has been the target of mounting protests by its victims and health reform advocates, including a demonstration Tuesday at its corporate headquarters in Philadelphia. More than...

Citizens will pay a visit today to WellPoint's Indianapolis headquarters to protest the giant insurance company's abusive practices and its opposition to real health care reform.

The rally is one of a nationwide wave of protests today in about 150 cities -- including events outside the Cigna headquarters in...

President Barack Obama's address to Congress Wednesday night was not just a litany of policy prescriptions. It was a call to action.

His approach took a page out of President Franklin Roosevelt's playbook.

FDR once met with a group of activists who sought his support for bold legislation. He...

It is time for health care reformers to turn up the heat on the major obstacle to Congress passing a good policy -- the private insurance industry.

Few Americans know the names of the nation's largest health insurance companies or their CEOs. That has to change, quickly.

The political...

Usually, when people are angry or frustrated they just vent. But sometimes they take action -- initially a few people, who recruit others to the cause -- and sometimes they win. Social movements are typically built on small victories -- stepping-stones that give people a sense of their collective power...

Proponents of President Obama's health care reform -- outmaneuvered for several weeks by conservative activists -- finally woke up this week. Liberals and Democrats showed up at most of the town meetings sponsored by Senators and Congressmembers around the country, It isn't clear, however, if the angry right-wing Republicans had...

"Democrats' government-run plan will make health care more costly than ever," Ohio Representative John Boehner, the House Republican leader, told the Wall Street Journal last Friday. Two days later, on Meet the Press, Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the Senate minority leader, said, "Pretty soon the doctors and the hospitals will...

Our society is so dominated by corporate culture that we hardly notice it. Every daily newspaper has a "business section," but not a single paper has a "labor" section. Politicians and pundits talk incessantly about what government should do to promote a healthy "business climate," but few discuss how to...

This July 4 feels different. We no longer have a president in the White House who questions our patriotism if we disagree with him. We now have a president who understands that loyalty to country is neither conservative nor liberal. President Barack Obama recognizes that the ways we Americans express...

Many celebrities will be in the stands to watch the Los Angeles Lakers play the Orlando Magic in the NBA finals at Amway Arena tonight, and even more Hollywood stars and political types will be at Staples Center Tuesday night if a 6th game is necessary. But outside both arenas,...

Los Angeles magazine -- the slick monthly targeted to young affluent readers who need to keep up with which restaurants, neighborhoods, celebrities, and clothing boutiques are hip -- slapped the word "Failure" across a photo of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the cover of its June issue. This was not...