Once again, a new administration and Congress will try to bring us universal health insurance. This time, despite urgent cost pressures, will they do it right?

So far as I can tell, the Republican plan for health care tends to be calling Democratic ideas "socialized medicine." But a new poll out of the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that may be an increasingly ineffective strategy. The researchers conducted a survey asking folks if they knew the term (if they had no idea what "socialized medicine was, they weren't included in follow-up questions) and then asking them some questions about it. The results aren't encouraging for the Rudy Giulianis of the world.

Sens. Ron Wyden and Bob Bennett are building a bipartisan coalition around health care reform. Together they have come up with a bill that is more impressive than anything offered by the presidential candidates.

It's not 1994 all over again. The next president can get the reforms that Harry Truman and Bill Clinton couldn't.

Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney jockey for the support of the Christian base.

However disappointing Bhutto was in her actions on behalf of Pakistan's women, she was a potent symbol of their potential empowerment. And symbols matter.