The Wild Card

By BOB HERBERT
NYT

There’s a lot to appreciate in the latest incarnation of the Democrats’ Sisyphean-like campaign to overhaul the nation’s health care system. In the current environment, matters are growing worse almost by the hour.

Horrendous job losses and an economy that is in shambles are driving up the number of people without health insurance. “Every day,” said President Obama in his speech to Congress this week, “14,000 Americans lose their coverage.”

This is occurring at the same time that the immense baby boomer generation is approaching retirement age, the age when even under the best of circumstances the need for health care steadily rises.

Even those with health insurance frequently find themselves on shaky ground, worried that they will lose it if they lose their jobs or that the coverage will not meet their real-world needs.

(More here.)