One Nation Under Medicare

By Derek Thompson

"That was pretty impressive, wasn't it?" President Obama said with a smile after he slapped a fly that was buzzing around him during an interview last week. "I got it. I got the sucker."

If only slapping around the players in the health-care reform debate were so easy. The annoying creatures he has to contend with this summer are the bickering stakeholders in a $2.1 trillion market that makes up 16 percent of the economy.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/one-nation-under-medicare/19888/