Update (Oct. 27, 3:30 p.m.): Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond’s spokeswoman said today that the senator is not on Medicare. The senator’s office has requested the report from Rep. Weiner’s office, but it has not been provided a copy of the…

Howard Dean told a health care roundtable in Washington D.C. that the Medicare eligibility age should be lowered to 50 so that some people will be reaping benefits of health care reform before the 2010 elections, a U.S. News and World Report story.…

Alabama Gov. George Wallace in the schoolhouse door, arguing for states' rights, June 11, 1963.

Whatever hopelessly wacky idea is floated in the conservative blogosphere, Missourians can be confident that state Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, will lasso it and bring it back…

Former U.S. Sen.  Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he that if he were in the Senate, he would vote for health care reform, even though the bill is not perfect.

Seriously.  He told a Time magazine writer that he would vote for…

Despite a lot of attention paid to sometimes raucous town hall meetings in August, a majority of Americans feel “shut out” from the health care debate, a new poll by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health shows. An NPR story reported that 71 percent of respondents…

The Hill has an interesting blog post by National Community Pharmacists Association VP for Public Affairs Kevin Schweers that looks at problems with mail-order prescription services. Such problems include late and misdirected pharmacy shipments and exposure of sensitive pharmaceutical products to extreme heat…

Please watch this.

(HT: Fired Up.)

Sen. Tom Harkin

There was a lot of talk about the public health insurance option over the weekend. From a steak fry fundraiser in Iowa to the Sunday morning talk shows to a rally in Minnesota attended by the president, the…

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

The case was argued, heartstrings were tugged and the gauntlet was hurled in President Barack Obama’s remarkable 50-minute address to the nation and a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night.

The president’s speech may not convince a narrowly divided Congress to…

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Andrew Sullivan thinks that President Obama used a “rope a dope” strategy on health care reform opponents, that for all the falderal at town hall meetings in August, essentially the opponents just punched themselves out. Mr.…

A CBS poll says about 67 percent of Americans are confused about health care reform.  Perhaps that’s because of all the misleading information being spread by opponents. Such as rationing, death panels, taxpayer-funded abortions, covering illegal immigrants, etc.

Of course, the main…

U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., held a town-hall meeting in his district over the weekend in which he revealed himself to be a birther (is that still going on?) and said (without apparent disbelief from the crowd) that Republicans have pending health care reform legislation.

Wait. What?…

Time magazine reports that Sen. Chuck Grassley was one of many, many Republicans who voted for end-of-life counseling in 2003.  Missouri Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond voted for it, as did then-Sen. Jim Talent. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin voted against it, and then-Sen. Peter…

The leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States in Guadalajara, Mexico. (AP photo)

At the so-called “Three Amigos Summit” yesterday in Guadalajara, Mexico, President Barack Obama declared that immigration reform legislation in the United States is getting a rain check.

Calling a…

Ezra Klein, an oped columnist at the Washington Post, interviews Sen. Johnny Isakson,  R-Ga., who cosponsored the 2007 Medicare End-of-Life Planning Act (which never came to the floor for a vote) about the “death panels’ that some people think are in the proposed health care…

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Last week, I passed along a proven method for tempering potentially angry public meetings — an invocation at the meeting’s start seeking patience, respect and understanding.

Here’s another strategy I have put to good use to help…

Dawn Majors/Post-Dispatch

Several hundred citizens, virtually all of them of mid- to late-middle age, showed up at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville Thursday evening. Judging by their behavior, their object was to display their scorn and shout down U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan,…

We often hear about the uninsured, but sometimes we don’t know who they are. I’ve seen them described as wealthy people or young people who choose not to buy insurance, illegal immigrants or people who are offered insurance through their…

The health care debate is going to hit reach the boiling point over the next few weeks.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats will get health care reform with or without Republicans on board, Dow Jones Newswires reports.   From the…