In my view, the major failure of President Obama and the Democrats in 2009 was that they did not frame or discuss health insurance reform as a human rights issue but rather got bogged down playing defense against Republican canards like socialism and death panels.

I’m a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. Canada’s single-payer system isn’t perfect, but I can say that the stress experienced by the cancer survivor in Lazarus’ column who had to file for bankruptcy would never have happened in Canada. While Canadians might complain from time to time, they would not trade their system for the one in the United States.

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