Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's secretary of Labor, in a speech September 2007 at the University of California at Berkeley, said that if a politician were going to tell the truth about health-care reform, he or she would say these three things:

It would cost more money, particularly for the young. It would not give old people the same coverage in their later years and would let them die. It would so control drug and insurance companies to reduce costs that the lack of innovation would make us all die younger because of the lack of R&D, which gives us new drugs and technology.

He is a proponent for the health-care bill. I assume he still holds his original beliefs, as do other Democrats. That explains why it takes so many pages of disguised rhetoric, crafted behind closed doors and sold with bribes.

The truth, like Sarah Palin's "death panels," has to be described another way. An honest bill could be written in 10 pages, covering pre-existing conditions, competition across state lines, tort reform, health savings accounts and private co-ops for small businesses and individuals, as the Republicans have offered.

Polk Dillon

Pinehurst