HealthStrong is a true grass-roots effort by people just like you who care about health care reform in this country.

What can we do as the bureaucrats duke out the details of health care reform? Maybe Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, had it right. It's time for personal accountability.

California announced recently that they're taking major steps to be a part of the change needed by the US healthcare system. They're launching a new "telehealth" system that will connect people in the state to the best healthcare regardless of location.

The more doctors you have in your area, the higher the cost of care. That is the case for many US cities according to Dartmouth Atlas data. Some states are addressing this problem by what appears to be the "calorie is not a calorie" rule.

Support for health care reform is growing. The current bill would end denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and to help curb costs, it would also require all Americans to get coverage and it has measures to try to reduce overall medical costs. The news is abuzz with new-found support for the bill.

Stephen Colbert does a fantastic job showing how polls work and includes an interview with Scott Rasmussen about polls on health care reform. I think something they forget to talk about is this: what percentage of the people who say they don't like the current bill wish it would have done more? According to Steven Kull there are about 17% of people who disapprove of the current bill because they wanted it to include more...not less.

I keep hearing republicans say that American's are against health care reform. I know this doesn't represent my view. Does it represent yours? Other polls show that some of the opposition to the current bill is that it doesn't go far enough.

This is a guest post by Dr. Joshua Freeman, a family physician, educator and author of the blog, Medicine and Social Justice. As we wait to see if the President’s health reform bill passes, it is a good time to review the actual core reasons why we need health reform. I believe that this will help ground us, and allow us to evaluate both whatever finally passes, and help us ignore the political posturing and maneuvering that distract us from them.