There is a health care crisis in America today. All over this country, good doctors are being driven out of business by exorbitant medical liability insurance costs.

This issue affects all Americans because everyone needs and deserves access to quality health care and comprehensive tort reform is the only way to ensure that care will be available when patients need it.

Ridiculous liability insurance premiums are making health care unavailable to more patients as doctors are forced to retire from medicine, leave the state or simply refuse to accept patients who require high-risk procedures. [Read article]

The biggest project in democracy in the coming years will not come from our adventure in the Middle East, but rather, the embryonic journey now beginning in China.

There, we have reasons to believe that it will succeed, with the reasons being twofold: changes in the shape of dissent in Chinese society and changes in economic policy.

On Oct. 19, the Chinese government issued its first report on economic development and building democracy, with the ironic key to success being the Communist Party. [Read article]

A journalism student asked me the other day, "What do you think accounts for student apathy in regards to the City Council elections?" I listed off the usual reasons; they are uninformed, disinterested or don't feel like their vote will count for anything.

But remembering last year's heated presidential election, I knew there must be some other reason that students are especially disinterested in the City Council elections. [Read article]

President Bush came into office in 2000 with an unprecedented budget surplus and a solemn pledge to refrain from raising taxes. Yet, together with Congress, he recklessly squandered the surplus on extravagant tax cuts that went mostly to the rich, blissfully sauntering toward what has been projected to become a monstrous $700 billion deficit.

Strangely enough, while the Bush administration's tax cuts have fueled the federal deficit, the president has repeatedly refused to consider repealing the tax cuts or implementing other tax increases. [Read article]

Real estate deserves respect, courtesy for 'ardent' work

Ryan Johnson's account of the "easy life" of realtors is misinformed and insulting ("Don't be a real estate agent"). That "fat 3 percent commission" gets split with the broker, company fees and the listing agent, so don't assume realtors are rolling in cash. My mother works ardently around the clock with clients, not so she can get the check, but so she can help them get a home they truly want. Instead of condemning the realtors and making sweeping generalizations, maybe inform the public that they should treat real estate agents with respect and courtesy instead. [Read article]