Free Republic

Arnold's Health Flop After Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled his universal health-care plan for California in January, almost everyone was laying down palms in Sacramento. Here was a Republican Governor putting aside political squabbling and "doing big things that Washington has failed to do," as Time magazine put it. What a change seven months later, with the plan on the cusp of collapse. There's a lesson here about health-care "bipartisanship" when it's merely a cover for bad policy. The California legislature is now in the second month of the fiscal year without a budget. Deadlocks are routine because the state requires a...

<p>Why are so many Democrats so confused as to where they should stand on the Medicare prescription drug bill before the Senate? Consider this: The party's two lions on health care issues, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Hillary Rodham Clinton, are pushing their colleagues in opposite ways.</p> <p>Just as befuddling: In interviews, each senator acknowledged the validity of the other's points. Both could agree on a drug bill if they could write it from scratch. But with Washington in Republican hands, they don't have that option.</p>