Newt Gingrich does us all a favor

Now that Newt Gingrich and Hillary Clinton have gotten together to work on health care IT legislation (See Unlikely Allies Tout Healthcare Bill in today's Boston Globe) I think it's time for the reactionaries to retire the term "Hillarycare."I get a chuckle out of defenders of the status quo in health care who try to head off reformers with doomsday scenarios and personal attacks against Senator Clinton. Here's a quote from a letter in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (Moonbeams in Vermont: Single-Payer Health Care) attacking a single-payer proposal:

Vermont would be a lovely laboratory. The plan won't work... and (in a burst of hope over experience) it might finally put a stake through the heart of "Hillarycare."

I'm not a proponent of single payer. But are the author and other mudslingers really prepared to defend the current system? Ironically, the President's spectacularly expensive Medicare drug benefit is itself a step toward a single payer system.