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The plans you are discussing embody my core belief that Americans should have better choices for health insurance, building on the principle that if they like the coverage they have now, they can keep it, while seeing their costs lowered as our reforms take hold. But for those who don't have such options, I agree that we should create a health insurance exchange -- a market where Americans can one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose the plan that's best for them, in the same way that Members of Congress and their families can. None of these plans should deny coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition, and all of these plans should include an affordable basic benefit package that includes prevention, and protection against catastrophic costs. I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest.

By plunging into the details of the reform rather than cheering from the sidelines, as he has done for months, Obama raises the political stakes for the summer�"s big legislative battle, and will hearten liberals who have yearned for his intervention to put a public sector option on the table.

We are thrilled to see President Obama's strong, unambiguous commitment to reform that includes the choice of keeping private health insurance or joining a new public health insurance option. The choice of a new public health insurance plan is the only way to control costs, guarantee coverage, ensure quality and transparency, and set a benchmark by which patients will know whether their private health insurance is truly giving them what they're paying for.

There is tremendous unity among President Obama, key committee leadership in both the House and the Senate, the broad coalition represented by Health Care for America Now, and the American people for reform based on the choice of private or public health insurance plans. It is now clearer than ever that this choice will be a fundamental part of the reform sent to the President's desk this year.

Do you feel safer today? Let's hope so, since you're certainly less free to travel about the Northern Hemisphere. Beginning just after midnight, every American returning from Canada, Mexico, and various island paradises now have to flash a U.S. passport to get back in the country. For the 70 percent of citizens who don't have passports, that means a minimum four to six weeks waiting time (and probably more, given the new filing rush) to legally escape the national boundaries. Better hope you weren't birthed by a midwife and have a funny-sounding surname!

No one informed Betancourt that his American citizenship was in question before – not in all the presidential elections he's voted in, not when he served in the Marines and not when he first became an emergency medical technician a decade ago. His father, a U.S. citizen, also served in the Marines.

"It's like a slap in the face," Betancourt said. "It doesn't change the way I feel or act, but I'm trying to do something as American as apple pie and go on vacation, and it feels like I've got the rug pulled out from under me."

Well, at least our country's top political leaders are totally aware of this grimly important trade of liberty for security.

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush admitted yesterday they had no idea the U.S. was implementing a new rule Monday that would require Canadians and Americans to have passports to cross the border.

The former presidents were caught off guard during a 90-minute joint appearance in Toronto when moderator Frank McKenna, the former Canadian ambassador to the U.S., spoke about how Canadians feel slighted by the new rule.

"I'll be frank with you Frank, I don't know about the passport issue," Bush told the crowd of 6,000.

"I thought we were making good progress on using a driver's licence to cross the border. What happened to the E-Z card?"

Clinton said he'd only heard about the passport requirement a day earlier, adding that in all likelihood most Americans were completely unaware of it as well. [...]

"I promise you, you have got my attention with this, so I'm going back home I'll see if there is anything else I can do," he said to cheers from the audience.

Yet another indication that our previous two presidents would have been better off reading Reason.