It's Wonk Night On The Virtual Book Tour!
Also, a review that really "got" the message of THE TEN YEAR WAR
Tonight at 7 pm THE TEN YEAR WAR virtual tour “travels” to South Florida, where I grew up, for an event sponsored by Books & Books in Coral Gables.
I confess that I am especially bummed this has to be via Crowdcast, not in person, because most of my family still lives there and last time (for my 2007 book Sick) it was a mini-reunion. The whole mishpocha, as we like to say.
But there are upsides to virtual tours and one of them is that I can get these great guests to join from around the country.
Tonight is a case in point. Sarah Kliff will be hosting.
Sarah has written for Politico, the Washington Post, and Vox. Currently she is an investigative reporter at the New York Times, where she spends a lot of her time striking fear into the hearts of administrators whose hospitals have been over-billing patients.
Sarah covered the ACA saga every step of the way and was one of a small group of writers everybody had to read if they wanted to keep up. (That’s still the case, by the way. Here’s her twitter feed if you want to follow her. )
We'll relive the good times, the bad times, and everything in between.
It should be great fun! Come join us!
Like the other book events, tonight’s is free and open to the public. You can watch on your browser (smart phones work!) and there will be a chance to ask questions.
Event info: https://booksandbooks.com/event/the-ten-year-war-an-evening-with-jonathan-cohn/
Order THE TEN YEAR WAR from Books and Books: https://shop.booksandbooks.com/book/9781250270931
Hard Things Are Hard
Two of former President Obama’s favorite sayings are that “hard things are hard” and “better is good.” It would be fair to say that those are two of the core messages of my book.
For all of the ACA’s inadequacies, it’s a big step forward in the cause of creating a more humane health care system. And that’s no small thing given the difficulty of passing big legislation, especially on health care.
Andrew Sprung, one of my favorite health care writers, has a review of THE TEN YEAR WAR that he wrote for The American Prospect. He picked up on this theme and ran with it, contemplating why lawmaking is so difficult — and how we should think about the fact that we are always settling for such less-than-perfect solutions.
It’s one of those reviews that stands, on its own, as something worth reading. I recommend it highly. And if you want to read Andrew on a more regular basis, he’s got a blog called Xpostfactoid that’s worth a bookmark.
By the way, I was so happy to have my book reviewed by the The American Prospect — which, as some of you know, is where I got my professional start right out of college.
The Prospect has a new executive editor named David Dayen and they’ve been killing it on reporting about the latest news from the Biden administration and liberal universe. Also worth following if you don’t already.