Health care and electoral reform

I came home from my summer holiday last night to find Tommy Douglas's dreams torn asunder, and now there's this from Ed Broadbent on the possibility--now non-possibility--of a citizens' assembly on electoral reform on the federal level:

We concluded from that that ultimately the practical decision making of the details, as opposed to the principles, should be made by elected people.

Et tu, Ed? I think I liked it better when I had my head under a nice, sunny, wine-flavoured rock in Kelowna.

I'll be spending most of this week catching up on the work that built up while I was gone, so in the meantime I'll direct you to Fair Vote Canada on the electoral reform front, and on the health care front to American blogger Ezra Klein's research on different health care systems. I reached a somewhat different conclusion than he does based on my experience living in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK, which I may blog about if I have a chance (the conclusion, that is, not the experience) but it's interesting to see how the bare facts stack up alongside each other. Thanks to Scott Tribe for the tip.