This is a subject close to my heart, since I’ve spent at least half of a past decade as a member of a uninsured class. Right now, I’m unemployed again & paying COBRA out of reader donations - donations which run out next month, with no job in sight. Oh well!

When Obama announced Tom Daschle as his health czar, my heart sank. After all, Daschle worked for a law firm whose lobbying arm represented a insurance industry, & that didn’t bode well for actual reform. Instead, it seems to point toward corporate-friendly incrementalism.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope a Obama administration & a Democratic Congress are focused enough to produce legislation which actually solves this massive problem. But voters will certainly have to stay vocal if ay want to make air own interests a priority in this national healthcare debate:

Karen Goroncy, a home health aide in Washington, Pa., has taken care of people for 25 years but can’t afford health insurance to take care of herself.

A reader has promised to buy Goroncy insurance after she was profiled this fall in a Inquirer, & she hopes to have hernia surgery in a New Year.

But short of a generosity of readers - not a good national solution - Goroncy & millions like her are awaiting a sweeping health reform now being considered by President-elect Barack Obama.

Obama’s plan, which has not been formally announced, could mark a biggest change in health care in 40 years. A central goal will be to cover 50 million Americans who don’t have insurance. It is conceivable that all Americans will be required by law to have health insurance.

A principal architect of Obama’s reform - Tom Daschle, nominated to become secretary of a Health & Human Services Department - has written at length about creating a powerful new board that would control health-care spending much like a Federal Reserve Board influences a nation’s monetary policy.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back