We have to build an independent, fighting movement for universal healthcare from the ground up, starting with local struggles such as the fight for single-payer in Vermont and the successful struggle that won life-saving liver transplants for two undocumented immigrants in Chicago. Only through these kinds of struggles can we expose the crooked priorities of the for-profit healthcare industry and push for the sane solution, affordable healthcare for all.

Obama retreated from universal single-payer before even running for president. The Democrats squelched single-payer advocates and even derailed a bill that did propose single-payer healthcare by expanding Medicare for all.

President Obama took on one of the worst crises in American history in one of the most politically polarized periods of American history and made lemonade. He passed historic legislation, he pulled America back from the brink of economic collapse, and he knows how to moonwalk.

The law is not perfect, nor fully operational yet (the mandate not becoming effective until 2014). But, at least the question now can now be “how will it work?” rather than “is the law even constitutional?”

In the first installment of this forum, Hussein Elbakri, of the Columbia Political Review, analyzed the arguments for and against the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality. Next Noah Fram, of the Vanderbilt Political Review, discussed the Act from the standpoint of public policy, asking directly if the bill is “a normative good for society.” If we believe Hussein that the bill could be considered constitutional because it is a rational political solution to the healthcare problem, I hope I can jump off from that point and delve into just why the politics are so controversial.

Much has been said about the current debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), especially with respect to its fiscal responsibility and constitutionality. However, both of these topics skim over a fairly fundamental aspect of the new law: What, in fact, would it do? And is it a normative “good” overall?

“Can the government make you buy cell phones?” The question Chief Justice Roberts asked during oral arguments over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is at the heart of fears spurred by many who oppose the bill.

The massive discrepancy between the debate over this bill and the facts of the American health care system is a testament to the sorry state of contemporary political discourse.

The recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception coverage mandate is one of the most recent examples of intrusive government power.

Providing political coverage for this year’s Kenneth Arrow Lecture on moral hazard in the health insurance industry is a difficult task because everyone in the room seemed to be convinced that healthcare is not a political issue.

Should states allow individuals to opt out of the of the Affordable HealthCare Act? Is health a universal human right? Is healthcare? Whose responsibility is it to provide healthcare?

We all know what’s going on in Washington: somehow health care, the driest of all dry political issues, has become the most incendiary topic in politics. Politicians are shrieking at the President, constituents are fired up about… something, and grown men are crying into their pillows at night.

When I broke the news to my parents this past Thanksgiving that I would not be seeking conventional employment after graduating this May, I was met with a surprising reaction: “You realize that you’re not going to be covered under our health insurance policy.”