A new Gallup poll reveals that Pres. Obama’s Jewish support is the strongest of any other non-Hispanic white religious grouping:

On my way back from a trip abroad, I generally try to pick up the best honey for my close relations. During the past decade I have been hearing that the supply of honey may become scarce with the bees vanishing at an alarming rate. It’s a question that has baffled the worlds of agriculture and science – what is it that has caused the mysterious deaths of honey bees all over the world in the last five...

Sen. Tom Harkin: “We will have a bill on the president’s desk before Christmas, a health-reform bill. It will have a lot of good stuff in it. It will have a lot of prevention and wellness programs in there that I’ve been fighting for. And it will have a public option… The question of if it doesn’t isn’t even an option.” Plus, Republicans won’t be involved in putting...

Today – October 2 – is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s (or Mahatma Gandhi’s) birth anniversary . Gandhi once said that if we are not careful then seven “deadly sins” will destroy us. They are: a) “Wealth Without Work”; b) “Pleasure Without Conscience”; c) “Knowledge Without Character; d) Commerce (Business) Without Morality (Ethics); e) Science...

There is no claim so crazy that Michele Bachmann will not make it — no lie so brazenly outrageous that she will not tell it (emphasis is in original):

I’m an American who didn’t brush his teeth until his late teens. And then only occasionally. I don’t remember using a toothbrush as a child. I do remember my parents bragging that my childhood dentist did not like kids; he took my siblings and me as a favor. That was no favor to me for that dentist did not believe in novocaine; and my parents did not believe in fluoride (they thought it was...

Daniel Engber: Being fat can make you poor, and being poor can make you sick, which means that being fat can make you sick irrespective of any weight-related diseases. Fatness (or the lifestyle associated with obesity) also creates its own health problems, regardless of how much money you have—and health problems tend to make people poor, through hospital bills and missed days of work. So fat can be impoverishing...

“[Let's] remember we should care about people even after they’re born. …” Alan Grayson, speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives about the recent Harvard study showing that 44,000 Americans die every year because they lack health insurance.

This is good news:

EDITOR’s NOTE: This column was put on a timer. Due to a technical glitch the PROPER byline that was set up did NOT appear when this first went on the site for the first 90 minutes. Although this does say “Guest Voice” on top, it did NOT show the byline of Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr. It is now fixed. TMV regrets the error. WASHINGTON — The strangest aspect of the debate...

Where have you heard this before: “We believe that the decision to perform a medical or surgical procedure should be made by the ____ in consultation with their ____.” If you filled in the blanks with “patient” and “physician,” you were wrong. The correct answer is your cat and veterinarian. In California, it seems the health care debate has spread to cats. Specifically, the...

As Patrick Edaburn reported earlier, the Senate Finance Committee rejected a public option for the version of health care reform legislation they are preparing.

Some of our readers, I am sure, read the New York Times. Some—perhaps many—do not. They don’t know what they are missing. Some love the New York Times. Some don’t. They have quite different feelings towards the venerable publication—too graphic to describe here. But we’ll forgive them for that. I, for one, read, like and—most of the time—agree with the New York...

How Not to Get the Swine Flu Raging Moderate, by Will Durst Well, look at the time. Aren’t we expecting the Return of the Bride of the Son of the Swine Flu pretty soon? That’s right. It’s Baaaaack and this time, it’s personal. Scientists predict the virus will be worse this swing through the Northern Hemisphere, but come on, no matter how bad it gets, it’s still not going to be 1919. After all, our...

Australian town of Bundanoon has become the first in the world to ban commercially-bottled water. The ban, which is supported by local shopkeepers, means water in plastic bottles can no longer be bought in the town in the Southern Highlands, two hours from Sydney. Instead, reusable bottles have gone on sale, which can be refilled for free at new drinking fountains (photo above), reports The Independent. “Bottled...

Guest Post By Leonidas Leonidas is a frequent, right of center commenter on The Moderate Voice and has been invited as a Guest Voice. ********** Policio reports: Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance. Violators could be charged with...

Despite all the dysfunctional attributes of the U.S. healthcare and health insurance industries, we do provide some people with the world’s best medical care as a result of cutting-edge technology and procedures provided by the world’s most talented physicians at some of our top institutions. People with real life-threatening diseases come from around the world to many American medical centers to get care...

A new Times/CBS News poll asks the question, “Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan — something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get — that would compete with private health insurance plans?”

I have never been a believer in the value of flexible spending accounts. The Baucus Bill calls for setting a $2,500 annual limit on what people can set aside in an FSA, among other restrictions. Ron Leiber reports that “a not-quite grass-roots effort has sprung up, led by companies that administer flexible spending accounts,” to advocate for them. I’ve fought with one of those companies,...

… and Sen. Stabenow replied, “I think your mom probably did.”

One salubrious side effect of the current debate has been the emergence of an energized GOP with a new generation of original thinkers: *South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who previously described health care as “Obama’s Waterloo” that will “break him,” now observes that the debate is putting American troops at risk in Afghanistan. He tells an interviewer that “the war in Afghanistan...

First, there is the fact that Nancy Pelosi is standing strongly behind the public option, saying no health care reform bill will pass the House without it. Not just that, but she told the press quite emphatically today that a triggered public option is not acceptable:

WASHINGTON — If the uninsured can’t count on the do-gooders to help them, where else can they turn? The question arises because certain leaders of the sector of our society devoted to civic endeavors moved this week to block a perfectly reasonable way of raising some money to extend health coverage to those who don’t have it. At issue is a proposal by a number of senators, including...

Ezra Klein comments today on a new NBC-WSJ poll that, in my view (and Klein’s, obviously) suggests some interesting things about the GOP style of governance. Here is the part that he quotes:

According to Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), if you’re sick (even seriously sick, like with cancer) and don’t have insurance, you should either look for “an existing government program” or beg for charity. This is what passes for Republican “compassion” these days. You’re sick? Tough luck. ********** “No one in this country, given who we are, should be sitting without...