Pre-Obama speech healthcare roundup

First, Tom Friedman moans our “one-party democracy on both national healthcare and global warming, to the point that this GOP Congress rejects ideas it has publicly supported in the past, all to try to make points at Obama Administration expense.

Second, playwright Anna Deveaure Smith has a number of takes from the heartland on healthcare concerns. That said, the gamut of commenters includes anti-“socialist” nuts and alt-med nuts

Next, Maureen Dowd says we need “less Spocky and more Rocky” out of President Obama. We’ll see what tonight’s speech shows.

Next, showing just how neoliberal the Slickster’s administration was, former Clinton apparatchik Matt Miller says junk the public option. He raises some good points, but overlooks that both the Netherlands and Switzerland are small countries with tight national regulatory systems. Short of robust regulation of insurers here on the federal level, some type of public option is needed to that end.

But, Paul Krugman sharply refutes the likes of him and even Ezra Klein. He lists yet more reasons, but along the lines of my own refuting of Miller, why we need the public option.
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