The problem with the health care reform debate is just that, it's a debate, in which a publicly supported single-payer model is excluded. Why? Because elected officials represent special interests, not the general public's interests — in this case private insurance companies.

As a result, we get the restricting rules of a self-serving debate, rather than a cold comparison of all models of health care, which would allow for the last thing special interests ever want — public policy decisions based on objective criteria.

The root of this problem lies with activist courts (i.e. Buckley v. Valeo), which ruled that campaign contributions cannot be substantially limited because such contributions are a form of speech, and speech cannot be limited.

Despite dissenting judges asserting that money is not speech but property and so can be regulated, we get Finance Committee senators like Max Baucus (D-Montana) taking both insurance company money ($3 million from 2003-2008) as well as single-payer models off the table. This is not called a conflict of interest. With single-payer models excluded from the agenda, it's supremely ironic that court decisions which encourage speech have, instead, restricted it. This is called serving the public interest.

Robert Lobell

Nevada City