During the health reform fight, a handful of people emerged with distinctive voices, who had a huge impact. The best of them combined the policy expertise, empathy, and graceful writing to command public attention as we finally extended health insurance coverage to millions of people.
Jonathan Cohn, senior editor of the New Republic was certainly one of those people. His award-winning 2007 book Sick chronicled the plight of uninsured and underinsured Americans. The New Yorker’s Atul Gawande called Sick “stunningly important … In one damning true story after another, Jonathan Cohn lays bare the tragedy of our health care system.â€
Jonathan also originated and ran an influential blog called “The Treatment,†covering the daily fight over health reform. I was a special correspondent for “The Treatment†during 2009 and 2010. Having Jonathan as my editor there was a just a very special opportunity for me in my midlife-crisis journalism career.
Jonathan and I sat down for a two-part video conversation at healthinsurance.org regarding how health reform is going, the President’s inaugural address, and other matters. Please check it out.
Some of the video is included above. An edited  transcript follows, below the fold, for those who prefer.
Continue reading “Getting the knowledge on health reform from the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn”