Palin's WSJ op-ed, plus some responses

According to a new op-ed by Sarah Palin in the Wall Street Journal, the former governor still disagrees with President Obama's plan to reform the country's health-care system. Among Palin's more salient objections are that the plan will introduce too much government control, will add burdensome weight to federal deficit, will fail to rein in costs associated with tort laws, and, yes, will even create "death panels" to save money. To be blunt, Palin's op-ed runs to just over 1,000 words, but people who have been keeping up on her Facebook notes have heard 90 percent of it before, albeit without such high polish. Still, it's a great one-stop shop for all of her major objections to the Obama administration's health-care plan. Read Palin's full piece here.

Responses to Palin's editorial have, frankly, not surprised us. Some pundits, taking a lead from Marc Ambinder from The Atlantic (who can sound quite bonkers about hating Palin), say the former governor has absolutely no credibility in the arena of health care policy, and that should preclude her from being taken seriously in this public debate. Conservatives4Palin has a (really) lengthy response to Ambinder, the gist of which can be cheekily glossed, 'Who died and made Marc Ambinder pope of this dump?' Other conservatives (posted in Texas for Sarah Palin's rather comprehensive round-up here) are saying that Palin hit another one out of the park; President Obama is scheduled to address the nation tonight about his health-care plan, so Palin's piece seems timed perfectly to create counter-buzz.

But all that talk has occured between people deeply divided by Sarah Palin's prominence. Although it doesn't mention Palin's Wall Street Journal op-ed, our own Amanda Coyne's recent opinion piece offers one of the most fact-based opinions about the objections Palin again calls up. Read Ms. Coyne's piece, including some shocking things about private insurance in Alaska, here.