Guests: Ben Protess, NYT. Ty Rogoway, AviationIntel. Mary Anastasia O'Grady, WSJ. Peter Berkowitz, Hoover.  

Hoover senior fellow Peter Berkowitz discusses recent domestic political events, including Republican efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act, the health care rollout in Oregon, government debt, and the budget.

Liberal democracy triumphs where communism fails because it limits the government’s ability to make important decisions on behalf of its citizens.

On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters delivered a stunning rebuke to the transformative agenda obdurately pursued by President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and their minions. . . .

“While in Beijing, the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom [Ghebreyesus] extolled China as a model in the war against SARS-CoV-2, better known as ‘coronavirus,’” reports Josef Joffe in The American Interest. “According to China’s state media, he [the director-general] gushed that ‘China’s speed . . . and efficiency . . . is the advantage of China’s system.’”

The United States leads the developed world in spending on health care, at nearly 15 percent of our GDP. But based on measures such as life expectancy at birth, Americans receive a lower level of care than do the citizens of many countries that spend less. What's wrong with health care in America? And how should we fix it? Peter Robinson speaks with John F. Cogan and Alain Enthoven.

The global AIDS pandemic is now in its third decade. Although treatments have improved and infection rates have slowed in the West, AIDS continues to take a staggering toll in Africa. And experts believe that Eurasia, particularly Russia, China, and India, may be next. Is the United States doing enough to combat the global AIDS crisis? Should the United States continue its current policy, which includes an emphasis on getting antiretroviral drugs to millions who can't now afford them? Or does the United States need to focus more on pressuring affected countries to reform their inadequate social and economic institutions? Peter Robinson speaks with Carol Adelman and Greg Behrman.

Ten years ago, soaring health care costs prompted the Clinton administration to propose sweeping reforms to the health care system, including a substantial new role for the federal government. But the plan drafted under the guidance of First Lady Hillary Clinton was defeated in Congress. A decade later, the problems with our health care system seem to have only gotten worse. In the recent economic downturn, millions lost their insurance along with their jobs, adding to the estimated 40 to 45 million Americans who have no medical insurance at all. Meanwhile the costs incurred by government and businesses to keep the rest of us covered are skyrocketing. Has the HMO model of health care that became predominant in the 1990s failed us? If so, what should replace it?