“The Minnesota Compromise” on Health Reform?

In the health reform debate, the Senate is split between “public option,” and “private only.” It’s reminiscent of the mid-19th century, when the split was “slave” versus “free,” and the Senate ultimately landed on middle ground, the Missouri Compromise of 1850.
In the waning days of 2009, the Senate is once again desperately searching [...]

Does Size Really Matter?

Danielle Steele’s novels are automatically superior to Leo Tolstoy’s novels, right? That must be so if you adopt the logic of a common contemporary Republican talking point: Big documents are automatically inferior to short documents.
Increasingly, it seems Republican pols and pundits love to criticize legislative proposals by citing the SIZE of the package. [...]

Signs of the Times

In the Arena, At Last

Republican President Theodore Roosevelt once described what it is like to stick your neck out in the brutal world of political communications:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man [...]

Health Care Expert Backs Public Option

Don’t want to overlook Lois Quam, quoted in yesterday’s StarTribune, supporting a public option for health insurance.
This is a big deal. Quam is smart — one of a handful of incredibly smart women in health care, including former state health commissioner Jan Malcolm, I had the privilege to meet when I did a little PR [...]

The Key To Public Support: Government-run Coverage

Pollster John Zogby recently found that public support for Senator Max Baucus’s health reform bill was at only about 29 percent. Ouch.
But interestingly, Zogby found the addition of two amendments would increase public support to the mid-50s. The amendments? Malpractice tort reform and a Medicare-like public insurance option to compete [...]

Scaredycrats Follow Pundits, Not Public

Republican political consultants like Frank Luntz have been telling health care reform opponents that Americans:
“…are deathly afraid that a government takeover will lower their quality of care – so they are extremely receptive to the anti-Washington approach. It’s not an economic issue. It’s a bureaucratic issue.”
But Luntz and his clients have a little [...]

Skewed Rude Feud

Just how divided are Americans in the health care debate? According to a Pew Research Center survey, most Americans, Democrats and Independents overwhelmingly feel that health reform opponents own most of the blame for rudeness and disrespect in the health reform debate. But Republicans not only have a polar opposite view on this [...]

Gang of Nix

nix (niks) slang. noun. Nothing.
After conceding dozens of major health care reforms in the “Gang of Six” process in order to gain exactly zero Republican votes, Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) is going to be one popular guy the next time he steps onto a used car lot.
All hail the [...]

Dr. Spin

Just because you have the opportunity to get lots of media attention doesn’t always mean it’s a good idea to get lots of media attention.
Case in point: With the President coming to Minnesota tomorrow, Governor Pawlenty could lay low for one day, but that would leave him out of the limelight. Or [...]