By Susanna Rodell
01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, July 6, 2006
HOBART, Tasmania

WHENEVER the lament goes up about the awful health-care system in America, there's a predictable response: Yes, we have our problems, but this country still has the best health care in the world. To those who still think this is true, I'd like to introduce Billy Badger, of the Australian state of Tasmania.

Ronald Brownstein
Washington Outlook
June 25, 2006

When organized labor's most inventive union president and the Republican lawmaker in line to chair the powerful House Ways and Means Committee are both touting the same revolutionary idea, it may be time to bend an ear.

May 15, 2006
New York Times
Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Today is the last day to sign up for Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit. It appears that mill ions of Americans, confused by the array of competing plans or simply unaware of the cutoff date, will miss the deadline. This will leave them without drug coverage for the rest of the year, and subject to financial penalties for the rest of their lives.

By JOANNE WOJCIK

March 13, 2006

While state lawmakers target private employers for not providing health care coverage, a similar issue may be brewing in many of their own backyards.

I am Patricia Moss and I am the proud president of AFSCME Ohio Council 8 representing 41,000 public employees in Ohio. Nationwide AFSCME represents more than 1.3 million working Americans.

Our members like most Ohioans find themselves in the midst of this fight for affordable, quality health care. As so many speakers will tell you today there are 1.3 million Ohioans without health care. Every 8th person you pass on the street in Ohio does not have health insurance.  Count them the next time you go for a walk.

Odds are good that Romney will rue the day he took credit for this bill.

Legislators around the country are looking to the law recently passed in Massachusetts for answers on how to cope with the health care crisis in their states. Will Massachusetts really be the first state to achieve universal health insurance? Should Republican voters across the country see this legislation as evidence that Republican Governor Mitt Romney, who is likely to seek his party’s nomination for president, is an effective leader, or a “Republican In Name Only” who believes in too much government?