Much is being made of Sen. Olympia Snowe’s lone Republican vote in favor of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill. From the New York Times: “Is this bill all that I would want?” Ms. Snowe said. “Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls. And [...]

First sentence from today’s AP story on Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe’s growing prominence in the health care debate: “They call her “President Snowe” in the blogosphere.” We haven’t come across that nickname yet, but a perusal of various online opinion shows a marked obsession with the Senator most-likely-to-secede from the closed ranks of the Republican [...]

The Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review, written by a former health industry executive, acknowledges that the bill will be very good for the health care industry: It is becoming more and more clear to me that the White House health care strategy this fall is based upon a belief they have been very successful [...]

Lots of reaction, to say the least, to the long-awaited Baucus bill.  Some reactions from the newspaper-reading class: NY Times reader comments What was the point of this bill? Few, if any Republicans will support any reform package. Democrats should just stay mostly with a House version and a public option. They won’t lose any [...]

Today President Obama called health care reform the “defining struggle of this generation.” Why? Amid all the complexity and red herrings of the seemingly never-ending debate over the legislation currently wending its way through Congress, it may help to delve into the belly of the beast via first-hand accounts of those unlucky enough to meet [...]

Amid the posturing, politicking, and general confusion of the health care debate, it’s easy to lose sight of the situation on the ground and the reasons that reform made it to the top of the agenda in the first place. The growing number of uninsured is one major factor, and the sense of powerlessness among [...]

Amid the posturing, politicking, and general confusion of the health care debate, it’s easy to lose sight of the situation on the ground and the reasons that reform made it to the top of the agenda in the first place. stethoscopeThe growing number of uninsured is one major factor, and the sense of powerlessness among many who have been forced to negotiate and plead with their insurance companies is another. In a series of posts this week we present some health care horror stories gleaned from consumer sites online. Keeping in mind that a license to complain is issued with every keyboard nowadays, the sheer breadth and scope of these Kafkaesque encounters, coupled with the frequent tone of weariness and desperation, serve as a powerful indictment of the present system.

Our friend the Wheelchair Kamikaze, who has written so eloquently about his experience with the insurance companies, objects to a study that finds that “multiple sclerosis (MS) delivers a massive blow to your job prospects as well as your health.” Let me save the research world some hard work and money. I’ve done some non-MS [...]

After all these years, the level and proliferation of DIY initiative on the Web still amazes. Here’s a dude, a self-described progressive, who’s been streaming his own political commentary with some pals since 2005. He’s amassed nearly 80,000 YouTube subscribers and 10,000,000 channel views. Now he’s mounting a campaign to convince MSNBC to make him [...]

Extracts from the Phoblographer’s Stream of Consciousness Reaction To Obama’s Speech: Mitch McConnell will always be a creepy smiler. Joe Biden confirms the speech is in the envelope. Well done, Joe. Teddy Roose first called for reform. God, we’re slow. If I lost my job right now, we’d have to move to England because there’s [...]