All the news that’s fit to print…. elsewhere.

Healthcare talk is all the rage today and I’ve just started combing through it all myself but here are some places you can get started.

Interesting tidbit from ABC:
An Oklahoma man who lost an eye and a leg in Iraq says the giant insurance company AIG refused to provide him a new plastic leg and fought to keep from paying for a wheelchair or glasses for the eye in which he has 30 percent vision.
“They bought the cheapest thing that they could get away with,” said 51-year old John Woodson, a truck driver for the KBR contracting firm who lost his leg when his truck hit a roadside bomb in Iraq.
The ABC spin here is …

We hear so much about the undertreated in our health care system. But we have a serious problem with overtreatment as well, and this, too, is the result of trusting too much to the markets.

Word is out that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle will be serving as Secretary of Health and Human Services and “health czar” with the Obama Administration. This is very big news not because of Daschle’s own proposed policies on health-care reform but because he is essentially being brought in as an enforcer. In order for any kind of health-care package to succeed, it has to get votes and make it successfully through the Senate. Daschle is fluent in the intricacies of the Senate (and House) and can help steer …

Texas is currently leading the nation in uninsured residents, with nearly 1 in 4 Texans lacking health insurance. Some may hear that and think “Gosh, 25% of the state is uninsured? That’s awful! How can we change our policies so that is no longer the case?” But McCain adviser* John Goodman (no, not that John Goodman) hears that statistic and thinks, “25% uninsured? That sounds awful. How can we change our definitions so that is no longer the case?”
“So I have a solution. And it will cost not …