Today's editorials and opinions

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Oct 5 2009

The Surgery Begins The Los Angeles Times
The Senate Finance Committee put the final touches on its healthcare bill early Friday morning, and soon Democratic leaders will begin reconciling it with a more costly alternative approved by the Senate's health panel (10/4).

The 'Kill Granny' Bill The New York Post
The Senate Finance Committee bill … robs the elderly to cover the uninsured -- like snatching purses from little old ladies (Betsy McCaughey, 10/5).

We All Have 'Special Interests' In Health Care Debate San Jose Mercury News
Candice Johnson in the CWA communications office assured me the union strongly supports health care reform. It just doesn't support reform that would have a negative impact on union members (Patty Fisher, 10/5).

To Be Effective, Exchanges Need Bargaining Power Kaiser Health News
Ten years from now, if health care reform is a boondoggle, you might be able to trace that failure back to a decision in the wee hours of last week's Senate Finance Committee hearings (Jonathan Cohn, 10/5).

The Conservative Case For Reform The Washington Post
Conservatives either genuinely believe that conservative principles will work to solve real-world problems such as health care or they don't. I believe they will (Gov. Bobby Jindal, 10/5).

What We Would Have Told Obama The Wall Street Journal
Mr. Obama has missed an opportunity to learn more about the real issues facing patients and doctors and to formulate a plan that truly puts patients in control with doctors as trusted advisers (Dr. Donald Palmisano, Dr. William Plested II and Dr. Daniel Johnson Jr., 10/4).

The Politics of Spite The New York Times
If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they're against it — whether or not it's good for America (Paul Krugman, 10/4).

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.