Today's selection of opinions and editorials

The Senate Is Ready To Act On Health Care Wall Street Journal
Health care is a complicated and deeply personal issue; it takes time and effort to get reform right. Legislating every piece of this puzzle would be impossible and counterproductive. What we can do is seize this opportunity to put America back on a fiscally sustainable path. The Senate Finance Committee proposal builds on what already works and fixes what threatens to break the bank for future generations (Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., 9/16).

Don't Cut Our (Public) Health Care CNN
Our inability to acknowledge the real role of government plays right into the hands of private companies that have never solved the challenges of health security (Jennifer Klein, 9/15).

The Need For Medical Liability Reform The Hill
The only major special interest group that hasn't been asked to compromise to get health reform passed is the trial lawyers (Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas).

Lurching Right On Immigration San Francisco Chronicle
President Obama has already made three big errors where the issues of health care and illegal immigration intersect, and we're still in the early innings (Ruben Navarrette Jr., 9/16).

Alarm Bell On Health Reform The Washington Post
When Ron Wyden talks about health-care reform, people should listen. When Ron Wyden balks at a Democratic health-care reform proposal, people should definitely listen (Ruth Marcus, 9/16).

Public Plan Isn't Possible Politico
Between the lines of President Barack Obama's health care speech last week before Congress, it was clear there will still be only one option: the insurance company option. Even those who had been allowed to take their chances with no coverage, particularly the young, will lose that option. They will be required to buy policies. The insurance giants will be swollen with even more billions in revenue. No wonder they have been playing ball with the White House (Bob Franken, 9/16).

This is part of Kaiser Health News' Daily Reports - a summary of health policy coverage from more than 300 news organizations. The full summary of the day's news can be found here and you can sign up for e-mail subscriptions to the Daily Reports here. In addition, our staff of reporters and correspondents file original stories each day, which you can find on our home page.

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.