Healthy Dissent

In Congress, health-care reformists are engaging in finger pointing as liberals and conservatives push alternatives to Clinton's plan

You can tell that Congress is serious about health-care reform when the debate starts turning personal. Last week it moved past the jargon about "provider networks" and "community ratings" to the discomfiting question of Senator Arlen Specter's brain tumor -- specifically, whether the average health plan under a Clinton system would have allowed him the expensive scan that he recently demanded against the advice of his doctor and that he credits with saving his life. (Answer: Probably not.)

That Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, should publicly ponder the personal impact of health-care reform is remarkable, considering that Congress often exempts itself from...

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