A review of The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office by David Blumenthal and James A. Morone. Hendrik Hertzberg on Obama, the Republicans, and health care reform. Some opponents of the president's health care efforts liken it to totalitarian states but what was health care policy like under, say, the Nazis? A look at what Andre the Giant teaches us about the health care debate. How health care reform could combat crime: Nurse home visits for pregnant women could keep their children off the streets in years to come. A review of The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T. R. Reid. From The Objective Standard, an essay on moral health care vs. "universal health care"; and a look at how freedom to contract protects insurability. Patients without borders: Mary Cuddehe on the rise of Mexican medical tourism. The notion that tax dollars shouldn't pay for abortions is an international aberration, an example of American exceptionalism run amok. The Abortion Evangelist: LeRoy Carhart is determined to train as many late-term-abortion providers as possible — or the practice just might die with him. Getting personal: Tests for inherited health risks may soon cost nothing — but who will actually benefit from them? A review of Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America by Kathleen M. Brown; The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History by Katherine Ashenburg; and Clean: A Personal History of Hygiene and Purity by Virginia Smith. A review of So Clean: Lord Leverhulme, Soap and Civilization by Brian Lewis.
