HillaryCare v.2 should prove no less acceptable than v.1 circa 1993. As the campaign ripens over the coming months, watching the Senator's labored efforts to peddle her latest healthcare scheme as a "new" idea (which it ain't) will be entertaining. Government cannot successfuly mandate both access and innovation. One wishes the Senator, rather than doubletalking her way around this iron truth, would simply explain what her Four Year Plan is.

I'm not sure I agree that "access and innovation" are a cost of universal care, but that's just because there's anotehr tradeoff we can make: as in Massachussetts, subsidize insurance for everyone -- but that means the cost of universal health care is more taxation and gov't spending. The point about tradeoffs remains valid, of course.

And Hillary is so right about Wal-Mart's low prices but low compensation being a mixed bad; it's kind of like the "mixed blessing" of the three brownies I had with lunch -- they taste great but make me even flabbier. What a nuanced dilemma posed by Wal-Mart and brownies.