Progressive Opinion

pressherald.mainetoday.com — If we ran our burrito restaurant the way a health insurance company operates, we'd have to close our doors. We would charge different individuals at different rates, give them different levels of service, and, if we felt like it, after they paid I would reserve the right to deny them a burrito because I had someone else offering me more money. What other business can charge whatever it wants and can refuse to deliver service when needed?

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voices.washingtonpost.com — The point of the Democratic majority in the next few years is not to enable the campaign strategies that will sustain a Democratic majority. It's to pass legislation, knowing full well that Democrats will lose their majority, and probably sooner than they would like.

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mydd.com — Lester Thurow then rightly observes that "in thinking about this solution, it is well to remember that none of our competitors became successful by following this route." And yet we and the British, as if in some bizarre trans-Atlantic suicide pact, plunged head first in a free market abyss that continues to resonate with not just the GOP but with all too many Democrats. Our urgency today is to demonstrate the failure of Reagan's America. We cannot delay this project.

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blogs.newamericamedia.org — Instead of implicitly threatening Rep. Cao and questioning his loyalty, GOP leaders like Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele might look to him as a blueprint for the party’s future. Like Steele, who is African-American, and fellow Louisianan Gov. Bobby Jindal (who is of Indian descent), Cao adds badly needed demographic diversity to the party.

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huffingtonpost.com — The overwhelming majority of uninsured U.S. residents are adult American citizens without children living in the south with moderately good health status. Oh, and one more thing: They're predominantly white. The reason is simple: There are many more white people in the U.S. than there are other persons of any other single race. So, the po' white south makes up most of the uninsured. Chew on that for a while. Then ask yourself where the strongest opposition to health reform comes from and contemplate how much sense that makes.

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thenation.com — Paradoxically, those Democrats voting against health care reform represent constituents most in need of health insurance.

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alternet.org — With the vote of a single Republican, Democrats passed the Affordable Health Care Act for America.

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nytimes.com — Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we've grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption "National Socialist Healthcare." It was grotesque — and it was also ominous. The key thing to understand about that rally is that it wasn't a fringe event. It was sponsored by the House Republican leadership — in fact, it was officially billed as a G.O.P. press conference. Senior lawmakers were in attendance, and apparently had no problem with the tone of the proceedings.

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dmiblog.com — Conservative blogs have transformed into a hit parade of reasons why the House Affordable Health Care for America Act will kill jobs and the unborn, stifle economic recovery, and destroy...education. Of course, the need to unsheathe so many harbingers of doom is mostly proof of the good that the health care bill promises to accomplish.

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motherjones.com — The anti-health care reform rally in Washington indicates the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement are increasingly one and the same.

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