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I was on Minnesota Public Radio's "The Daily Circuit" yesterday, to talk about the Obama campaign's tailored health care reform pitch to African Americans and Latinos. It's one of the few times I can recall the White House being as specific about the benefits of health care reform as it should have been all along. The basic message is that African Americans and Latinos, who are uninsured at rates much higher than whites, stand to gain a lot from access to preventative care, and other measures to reduce health disparities in both communities. 

But while the White House is working to make African Americans and Latino voters aware of those benefits and how to access them, the president might ad that those very benefits are now threatened by the newest "Death Panel" to enter the seemingly interminable health care reform debate.

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At yesterday's Jerusalem fundraiser, Mitt Romney praised Israel's single-payer, government-run health care system as better than America's. The NY Times quoted Romney as saying: more »

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Unless you've been off the planet for the better part of this year, you've heard all about Mitt Romney's vulture capitalist career at the helm of Bain Capital — the private equity firm founded by Romney, where he gained the experience he touts as his chief qualification for the presidency. You've heard about how Romney pioneered the practice of offshoring while at Bain, made millions sending more jobs to China than he created here, and made even more money by investing in Chinese firms that benefited from the offshoring of American jobs.

You've also heard how the jobs Romney takes credit for creating are low-paying jobs with no pathway to middle class living. You've heard about the closed factories and laid-off workers. If you've been reading here for a while, you get that private equity sounds like a business play by Tony Soprano: cheat main street and get rich.

Now imagine Bain Capital running your health care, or even your child's care. Imagine Bain capitalism as the basis for our health care system.

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In a previous post, I wrote that Mitt Romney was booed at the NAACP convention when he reiterated his support for repealing health care reform was because,  what health care reform means for African Americans. Many people in the audience probably knew what health care reform means for them, their families, and the communities.

Romney offered the standard conservative "one-size-fits-all" solution for health care.

Free enterprise is still the greatest force for upward mobility, economic security, and the expansion of the middle class. We have seen in recent years what it’s like to have less free enterprise. As President, I will show the good things that can happen when we have more – more business activity, more jobs, more opportunity, more paychecks, more savings accounts.

Romney either ignored or failed to grasp that his experience with the free market is very different from the experiences of many people in the NAACP audience.

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Before Andrew Leonard's paean to paying taxes (inspired by his house catching fire) sparked me to write a different post on Friday, I'd intended to write a wrap-up post, comparing Mitt Romney's NAACP speech to Joe Biden's speech. Something Vice President Biden said in his speech reminded me of something else I heard from a speaker at the closing plenary of the Take Back the American Dream conference this year; something brings into focus the stark choice facing voters in November, and why the NAACP audience responded so differently to Romney and Biden.

Vice President Biden got to the meat of his speech right from the beginning.

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And he's supposed to be one of the reasonable ones:

Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) said on Monday evening that he didn't believe highly expensive health care should be provided to uninsured patients with pre-existing conditions...

"While I don't think that someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should the next day be able to have millions and millions and millions of dollars of health care provided, I do believe there can be a structure to deal with the issue of pre-existing conditions," Dreier said.

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The Affordable Care Act is already working. And those who vote to repeal it will hurt the 2.5 million college age kids who are now covered through their parents' plans -- the 24 million seniors who got checkups through Medicare or the 17 million kids who can no longer be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. more »

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This is a sick story about sick people from a sick state in a sick country: more »

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