In the wake of the health care bill’s collapse, Mr. Stromberg imagines that a bipartisan coalition could rally behind a package that includes “reinsurance programs to drive down premiums, fully funds Obamacare subsidies, repeals the mandate on employers to provide health care insurance and offers states more flexibility.” Read more »

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• Eliza Newlin Carney in The American Prospect:

“Wherever federal and congressional investigations lead, the danger posed by foreign interference in U.S. elections goes beyond the Trump campaign.”

Ms. Carney wants to draw more attention to the regulatory process at the Federal Election Commission. The commission is grappling with questions about what Russia’s reported interests in American elections could mean — independent of any discoveries made during the ongoing investigations. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling that lifted the limits on political contributions from corporations, some see a potential loophole for foreign nationals to exploit. When Ms. Carney looks to how the commission is handling these questions, she finds a partisan divide. Read more »

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• Norm Ornstein in The Atlantic:

“What emerges is a truly disturbing picture of a failed legislative process built on a deep distortion of representative democracy. A thoroughly partisan, ill-conceived and ill-considered bill, slapped together without the input of experts or stakeholders, done not to improve the health care system.”

Mr. Ornstein is displeased with the way health care is being deliberated in Congress. He discusses the history of the Affordable Care Act and says that Republicans who reflexively opposed it have offered no alternative framework. Instead he taunts an “ideological view that cutting government magically brings freedom and prosperity and good health.”

And Finally, From the Center:

• The Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield in The Dallas Morning News:

“The rush to repeal the A.C.A. at this stage was simply inhuman, plainly immoral politics. Everyone agrees that reform is necessary — but not that way.”

Father Whitfield, a parochial vicar at St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas, writes of the need for more debate and information gathering as Congress considers health care legislation. He argues that theoretical abstraction makes the “bills that were under discussion read like cuneiform.” He thinks we should consider the “personal particulars of human lives” first, before ideological philosophies frame the debate. Read more »