For help in separating sense from nonsense in the health care reform debate, check out the second issue of The Health Express, a wonderful resource produced right here in West Virginia.

For additional help in separating truth from falsehood, check out the St. Petersburg Times’ Politifact.com Truth-O-Meter on policymakers’ health care reform claims.  If you’ve never checked out Politfact.com before, you must.  It won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting this year, and you’ll quickly discover why.  I especially enjoy the Pants on Fire section reserved for the biggest lies and misstatements.

I have been disappointed to read this past week that the Obama Administration appears to be considering jettisoning health care reform’s public insurance option.  Under the public option, the government would run an insurance program, much like Medicare, that would compete with private sector plans.

In place of the public insurance option, some Democrats are floating the idea of creating new health care cooperatives.  Health care cooperatives would be little more than mutual (owned by policyholders) insurance companies that would negotiate rates with health care providers.  Lest you be confused, this nation has quite a few mutual insurance companies already.  State Farm and MetLife, for example, are both mutual insurance companies.  So this $6 billion proposal is not a reform at all.  Furthermore, writes the New York Times, “the co-op idea is so ill defined that no one knows exactly what it would look like or how effectively it would compete with commercial insurers.”  In other words, some people seem ready to waste $6 billion on a half-baked idea.

In 1994 a nice couple named Harry and Louise convinced us that we didn’t need health care reform.  Back then, Louise was famous for saying:  ”Having choices we don’t like is no choice at all.”  If I had a choice, I would choose the government-run insurance plan.  But this time around the people who brought us Harry and Louise are busy trying to deny me the choice I want.  Why are the same people who were such big champions of choice in 1994 so afraid of giving me the choice I want today?

For those of you who were convinced that the debate over health care reform reached an all-time low when Sarah Palin began discussing “death panels,” which apparently would be left to decide whether dear old Grandma might live or die under the Democrats’ plan, let me present another nominee for the (dis)honor:

Earlier this month, Investor’s Business Monthly ran an editorial (in)appropriately titled “How House Bill Runs Over Grandma” criticizing Democrats for wanting to set up a health care system similar to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.  Not satisfied with relying on dear old Grandma’s imminent demise to make its point, the editorial proceeded to turn renowned physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking, who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease, is paralyzed and speaks though a voice synthesizer, into its poster child for the evils inherent in the British system.  According to the original editorial, which conveniently has been edited, Dr. Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K.” because his life would be declared “essentially worthless.”

A great argument save for one pesky little detail …. Dr. Hawking is British and receives free health care through the National Health Service.  What did Dr. Hawking have to say in response to the editorial?  ”I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the N.H.S.  I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”

The more I read the more discouraged I get about the prospects for meaningful health care reform.

The major action on the Senate side appears to be occurring in Democratic Senator Max Baucus’ office.  Over healthy snacks of chocolate-covered potato chips, Oreo cookies, and beef jerky (couldn’t make up this tidbit if I tried), Senator Baucus and his colleagues appear to have discarded the ideas of allowing a government-run insurance plan to compete with private sector plans, mandating that employers of a certain size provide health insurance, and raising taxes on the rich to fund reform.  In their place, the Senators are likely to propose creating a network of nonprofit cooperatives.  I might feel better about this proposal if I didn’t know that Senator Max Baucus recently held a $10,000 per plate (of chicken cordon bleu) fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that was attended primarily by health care industry executives and raised nearly $1.5 million from these same people in 2007 and 2008.  I also can’t help but wonder why the guy is so thin.

Meanwhile, in the House, health care reform efforts seem to be stalled with open warfare between House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and “blue dog” Democrats.  At this point, they appear to be talking, but not agreeing.

This is not the kind of debate I expected when I heard President Obama speak of meaningful health care reform last week.  What happened?  I don’t know, but it certainly doesn’t help that The New York Times is sending me a “breaking news alert” that President Obama’s clout on health care reform is eroding, according to a new New York Times/CBS News poll, even though a careful reading of the article suggests overwhelming support for some kind of reform.

Tonight I’m saying a prayer for the quick recovery of Senator Ted Kennedy, the foremost authority on this issue.  His insights are desperately needed right now.

30 July 2009.  UPDATE: Key House members reach a compromise!