Today's opinions and editorials

A selection of today's opinions and editorials:

Baucus Bludgeons Humana Wall Street Journal
Political intimidation has always been part of the current Congress's health-care strategy: "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu" is tattooed on every lobbyist and industry rep in Washington. But Max Baucus's latest bullying tactics are hard to believe by even these standards, as the Senate Finance Chairman has sicced federal regulators on the insurer Humana Inc. for daring to criticize one part of his health bill (9/22).

Debunking A Myth The Seattle Times
As we reach for the dream of health care for all, we need to focus our reform energies on improving patient safety. Preventing medical errors will lower health-care costs, reduce doctors' insurance premiums and protect patients (Patricia Greenstreet, 9/21).

Medicare For All The Los Angeles Times
Expanding the program to include everyone would be a simple, popular way to reform healthcare (Theodore Roszak, 9/21).

Housing For Homeless Critical For Health Care The Chicago Tribune
A ground-breaking demonstration in Chicago showed that providing housing and supportive services to chronically ill homeless people could reduce health care use by one-third (Mark Ishaug, 9/22).

Who Pays For Health Care Reform, And Is It Fair? The Washington Post
No one is against expanding health coverage on principle. As we come down to crunch time, the health-reform debate is all about money (Simon Johnson and James Kwak, 9/22).

What Women Need From Healthcare Reform The Miami Herald
With healthcare reform efforts reaching a critical stage, the stakes couldn't be higher for women. Women are the victims of a healthcare system that treats most people badly at one point or another, but that treats women badly all the time (Nancy Ratzan, 9/21).

Is Mandatory Health Insurance Constitutional? CBS News
In the last few days, a new argument has emerged in the debate over Democratic health care proposals: Are they constitutional? More precisely, can the federal government force Americans to buy health insurance? (Declan McCullagh, 9/21).

This is part of Kaiser Health News' Daily Report - 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 Report here. In addition, our staff of reporters and correspondents file original stories each day, which you can find on our home page.