Healthy debates on printed pages

The New Yorker asks its readers, “Is Health Care A Right?”

Boston surgeon and writer Atul Gawande takes readers to his conservative hometown of Athens, Ohio, to get people’s opinions on the question.

The story idea is timely, with Republicans working for a third time to repeal and replace Obamacare. Yet, the seven-page article starts to read like the Senate bill itself.

One person says she feels one way, and another has an opposite view. This reads like a laundry list of responses without a real center.

The weekly gets tough with Myanmar leader and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi for allowing ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority. It takes too long to get to the point.

In contrast, Time makes the same case in its current issue more effectively and in far fewer words. Time says near the top that 420,000 Rohingya have fled for Bangladesh, twothirds of them children.

Time also argues that Harvard should allow Michelle Jones to enroll after she spent 21 years in prison for killing her 4year-old. Jones, who has earned two degrees while in jail, started instead this month at NYU, only two days after being released from prison.

The Time cover story on the state of the Democratic party makes the case that if the progressive wing of the party takes over, it likely would not end well, citing the failures of Mike Dukakis in 1988 and Walter Mondale in 1984. We guess it’s as good a guess as anyone’s — although pretty lame.