Today's opinions and editorials

Obamacare Is Bad Medicine National Review Online
As a society, we have to make choices. Do we want our doctors to be well-qualified practitioners using their experience and judgment to help as many patients as they can? Or do we want detached, disenfranchised doctors looking to their next career while practicing medicine with the mentality of postal workers? (Soumi Eachempati 12/7).

Health Care and Cancer: Reforming The Odds In A Costly System Politics Daily
As Congress wrestles its massive health reform bill to passage, the task force raised the first tiny specter of health care rationing with its call for scaled-back breast screenings, telling women they are better off to wait until they are 50 to have a first mammogram and then have them every other year rather than annually. Predictably, the reaction was a maelstrom of indignant fury (Janet W. Battaile, 12/7).

Coverage Without Borders The New York Times
To deny our immigrant brothers and sisters basic health care coverage is immoral. To allow people's basic health needs to be trumped by divisive politics violates American standards of decency and compassion. We should pass health care reform that provides access to all, in the interests of the common good (Roger Mahony, 12/7).

The Medical Bill You Need To See The Washington Post
[H]ealth-care coverage is not a benefit. It's a wage deduction. When premium costs go up, wages go down. When premium costs go down, wages go up. Yet workers don't know that. In fact, the information is hidden from them. That means that cost control seems like all pain and no gain, which makes it virtually impossible for Congress to pass. It's like asking someone to diet when they don't realize it will help them lose weight (Ezra Klein, 12/8).

Status Quo Is Risky Health Care Strategy The Star Tribune
Although everyone has focused on increased health insurance costs if reform passes, what happens if it does not? The reality, as [Norm] Ornstein correctly pointed out, is that consumers' premiums will continue to skyrocket. The steep hikes that lie ahead for families and individuals under the current system are nothing short of breathtaking -- a fact that health care reform opponents conveniently and disingenuously omit. If nothing is done, those now fortunate enough to have coverage are likely to find themselves among the ranks of the uninsured before long (12/6).

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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.