...then it should have been David Leonhardt's article from the New York Times "Week in Review" and Ezra Klein's from the Washington Post "Outlook."
Leonhardt talks about the long history of trying to reorganize medical care, which predated not only this year's reform efforts but even the spread of managed care during the 1980s and 1990s. Klein looks at the ghosts of Clintoncare and how they've shaped this reform effort, for better and for worse.
A common thread running through them is the difficulty of changing the ways doctors and patients behave, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that present behaviors lead to medical care that is both expensive and not very good. Between the two pieces, you get a pretty good sense of both the ambition of this year's reformers--and why our political system is so hostile to it.
--Jonathan Cohn