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Other countries have comparative effectiveness programs to improve health care and reduce costs. The shocking tale of what happened in Australia and Germany should change the minds of any person with a moral conscience (to support health care reform in the US).

It now seems socially acceptable for political operatives who oppose health care to just falsely assert to the whole nation that access to emergency rooms is the same as access to ‘health care’. That is ridiculous and they should not be allowed to get away with it. I don’t know if it is a good idea to start a diary with an order to ‘Contact the Media’, but I am hearing such outrageous nonsense in the media, but I feel like I need to ring alarm bells.

The GOP leadership, including Michael Steele, has begun a depraved scare mongering campaign, charging that health care reform will mean ‘government run’ health care. It implies that the elderly will be denied health care and die under reform. The real facts are that people, including the elderly, are dying now because of the dysfunctional health care system in the US. Tell the media to get some facts and tell the truth.

Some talking point themes against healthcare reform are emerging. Here are my responses. Some of them are pretty snappy. Some of them are not, but I am sure folks can snappify them when talking to their family, friends and representatives.

A new scare tactic of opponents to healthcare reform is to claim that it must lead to cruel and arbitrary health care rationing and long dangerous waiting lists for surgical procedures. The opponents of reform are wrong.

The concept of an economic ‘value of life’ is useful for making some kinds of decisions in deciding what kinds of public health programs or low to moderate risk medical procedures should be used. It does not tell us what the value of life is in extreme situations, and should not be confused with the idea of rationing life-saving care.

It goes to all sorta places hither and, thither over hill and dale. Much of it goes to higher prices for doctors, and drugs, which will be hard to fix. Between 20% and 30% goes to higher administrative costs. Some goes to messed up inefficient reimbursement polcies.

Well, OK, it is economics, but read it for whatever it might be worth. I think indications are that the House proposal is close to a good plan, but dangerously weak in a couple of ways. This post explains why.

Washington Post apparently is, or was, planning to offer industry lobbyists and industry association executives access in exchange $250,000.

SCOTUS blog has been posting on Sotomayor’s record.