Healthcare Reform and Abortion Rights

Nov. 11, 2009 | By Larry Mantle

<<February 2010 
SuMoTuWeThFrSa
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28      

Though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tried hard to avoid a battle over abortion rights, it looks like that's what he's now facing in his house's version of healthcare reform. Given the strong protest from abortion rights advocates over the House's Stupak ammendment, it looks like the Senate is in a tough spot.

We'll be closely watching the debate to see where some compromise might be reached. Right now, it's unclear what that would be.

It was a blast to talk with "Monty Python's" John Cleese this morning. Just as fun was listening to the clips we played from "Monty Python's Flying Circus," "Fawlty Towers," and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The humor's as funny today as when they created it.

I appreciate all the listener contributions to our conversation on cyclists and motorists sharing the road. He continued our conversation from last week, given that we had such strong listener interest. Please share your comments here about how cars and bikes can better share the road.

Tonight, "AirTalk" is on the road at the Autry in Griffith Park. At 7:00 p.m. we'll talk about the way forward in Afghanistan. Please join us. More information is here on the website. RSVP to: airtalk@kpcc.org.

Tomorrow, we'll air our Afghanistan conversation during the 11:00 a.m. hour.

Stan
2 months, 4 weeks ago

In listening to your program this morning I was reminded of a talk I heard from Joe Dunn who has a long record in California politics. He said that passing legislation was 10% policy and 90% politics; you could have the best intentioned policies in the world but without handling the politics nothing would be accomplished. We are facing that now in the "health care" debate which, to my mind, is more a debate about health insurance than health care. Insuring everybody will provide access for more people but will it really improve the care? Based on all that I have heard we will still have a level of care that is below that of many other countries. See "Frontline" of last night.

One other thing that comes to mind is a saying that I preached when I was still working and responsible for the design and implementation of large systems. "Perfect is the enemy of the good." There would come a time when development had to stop because the system, while not perfect, could perform the task(s) expected of it and was affordable.

Comments disabled after 14 days