To the Point

Healthcare and the Presidential Campaign

Since 2000, health insurance premiums have risen by 60 percent, five times faster than wages. The average family health plan now costs $10,000, the annual salary of a worker making the minimum wage. Large employers appear to be hiring fewer workers because of the costs; small businesses are dropping coverage altogether. With 45 million Americans uninsured, should government assume the health insurance burden or should individuals become "prudent shoppers" and help cut costs themselves? Would the Kerry plan cost billions of dollars the government can't afford? Would the Bush plan make insurance affordable for only the healthiest people? Would either one come close to solving the problem? We hear both campaigns outline their proposals, and get a reality check from health economists at UCLA and Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Making News: Ambassador Bremer Critical of Troop Levels in Iraq The US "never had enough troops on the ground" in Iraq and "paid a big price" for not containing violence and looting immediately after the invasion. That's not from a critic of the Iraq War, but from Paul Bremer, who led the occupation government until the transfer of political power in June. The ambassador is quoted in today's Washington Post, in an article co-written by Robin Wright. Reporter's Notebook: Nobel Prize for Physics Goes to Three American Scientists Three Americans--David Gross of UC Santa Barbara, Frank Wilczeck of MIT and David Politzer of Cal-Tech--share today's Nobel Prize for Physics. Their work has led scientists closer to what's called the Holy Grail of Physics, a single mathematical equation that would explain all the elements of the universe. Politzer's colleague, John Schwarz, expounds on the "Theory of Everything," one that's easy to say but very difficult to understand.