The Moral Center by David Callahan (Harcourt, 260 pages, $24.00) Ever since the 2004 exit polls, progressives have been puzzling over how to reclaim so-called values voters. Or, to put the problem another way, how can Democrats satisfy Americans’ interests (the economy, stupid, and bring those troops home alive) while also appealing to […]
Deborah Stone
Deborah Stone is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and holds an investigator award in health policy from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Die-Hards
Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in Our Aging Society by President’s Council on Bioethics (309 pages, free at www.bioethics.gov) When George W. Bush appointed the President’s Council on Bioethics in 2001, he stacked it with conservatives who had already taken stands against abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. Nonetheless, I approached the council’s sixth […]
Posted inColumns
Importing Government
As Congress diddles with a Medicare prescription-drug plan, citizens are busing and clicking their way to Canadian pharmacies, where drugs are affordable. U.S. politicians, refusing to control drug prices, are also flocking to Canada for help by endorsing what’s euphemistically called “reimportation.” But make no mistake: What we are really importing from Canada is effective […]
Posted inFeatures
State of the Debate: Work and the Moral Woman
Women today are buffeted by the demands of family, career, and feminism. Are these demands sometimes morally incompatible?
Posted inArticle
How Do I Vote For Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.
A close election, goes the old cliché, proves that every vote counts. Election 2000 proved just the opposite: When the election is close and every vote counts, or is supposed to, that’s when the voter is the least powerful. Come to find out, even the most fundamental particle of democracy is loaded with opportunities for […]
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Bedside Manna
Marcus Welby was a myth; doctors have always cared about money. But the for-profit managed care industry makes no pretense: It’s offering physicians money to make decisions that are plainly not in the interests of patients.
Posted inHealth and Social Policy
Care and Trembling
As provision of care for the sick and the elderly moves from the domestic sphere to the public realm and the market, caregivers often find themselves in the role of bedside bureaucrats.
Posted inFeatures
A Darker Ribbon
I’ve always wondered where the money goes when I pay extra to the U.S. Post Office for a sheet of breast cancer stamps, when I buy daffodils from the American Cancer Society, or when I pledge a donation to someone running a race for the cure. Or, for that matter, when I give money to […]
Posted inFeatures
Rationing Compassion
“I had begun to feel that we were part of some psychology experiment whose design was to see how quickly we could abandon our humanity.” –Dr. Linda Peeno, an ex-medical director and claims reviewer for HMOs, confessing why she quit, in U.S. News and World Report, March 9, 1998. Back in the twentieth century, the […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Sex, Lies, and The Scarlet Letter
O nce when I was about nine, I wandered into my aunt’s kitchen during Thanksgiving to find all the grown-up women whispering, hugging, and crying. When they explained to me what was going on (Auntie Cookie had just found out she was going to have another baby and they were crying from happiness), they confirmed […]