Opeds: Editorials weigh in on success -- or not -- of 'Obama's' health reform

Download PDF Copy

Oct 8 2010

Reminding Ourselves What Has Gone Right With The Health Law Kaiser Health News
Six months after the passage of health care reform, it is easy to forget how far we have come in such a short time. ... It will take years to make the law's most important changes. But by the time they are in place, if all goes well, most Americans truly will be better off (former Sen. Tom Daschle, 10/7).

ObamaCare And The Election The Wall Street Journal
American politics is turning right because Democratic leaders tried to govern from the hard ideological left, even over the objections of their own rank and file and the larger public. The question for Republicans is whether they will have the political fortitude to clean up the mess they may soon inherit. Nowhere is this task more urgent than in the health markets (10/7).

Virginia's 5th District Race May Say A Lot About The Electoral Landscape The Washington Post
(Rep. Tom Perriello) supported the stimulus package, the cap-and-trade bill and health-care reform. ... Thus has Virginia's 5th District become a laboratory test of many propositions. Do politicians who vote their convictions over their obvious political interests get rewarded or punished? (E.J. Dionne Jr., 10/7).

The Midterm Elections — High Stakes For Health Policy The New England Journal of Medicine
Whatever the electoral outcome, the political battle over health care reform will continue into the 2012 presidential elections and probably beyond (Henry Aaron, 10/6).

Dave Jones For Insurance Commissioner Los Angeles Times
[Democrat] Jones, who's been chairman of the Assembly's health and judiciary committees, demonstrates a much better grasp of the details and complexities of insurance regulation (10/7).

Conservatives and RomneyCare The American Spectator
I will agree with (Jon) Chait that the Massachusetts health care plan did not hurt Romney as much as it should have, and there are a number of reasons why (Philip Klein, 10/6).

Coverage May Change, But Not For The Worse Des Moines Register
So here's what Obama should have said: Your health insurance may well change — for the better. Because you'll finally have some basic protections and guarantees — things you've likely never had before (10/7).

There Is Good To Be Found In Health Care Reform (Sioux Falls, S.D.) Argus Leader
Spend no more energy discussing the value of this bill. Rather, find the good in it and make the rest better (Dr. Kevin Weiland, 10/7).

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.