October 2009 Archives

As they lick their wounds from their location in the briar patch, America's health insurers may be musing about how they could have come out in a better place.  Perhaps there's still time to add a rule that would require uninsured sick people to join the public plan rather than merely relying on time-tested indirect techniques to convince them to seek insurance elsewhere.In the absence of a public plan, a ...
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The hyperventilating rhetoric from the political extremes is receding as the legislative process moves ahead on health reform.  While there are still many devilish details to be worked out, it now seems clear that a new law will be enacted that significantly reduces the uninsured population but has only a modest impact on constraining costs. And costs, as numerous failed state Medicaid expansions over the years have proven, can sabotage the ...
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The 2008 Political Play of the Year was Barack Obama's ability to unite political liberals and moderates in their opposition to the Bush/Cheney economic policies and military engagements.  His short resume and soaring rhetoric (short on specifics) allowed him to maintain appeal to a loyal cadre of liberal volunteers (and many who were not so liberal) knocking on the doors of enough moderate voters to win the presidency and at the ...
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