During the second day of debates at the Netroots Nation conference, The Nation‘s Washington, DC editor Christopher Hayes talks about progressives’ goals, point A, and their status quo, point B. He compares healthcare debate now to going around the mountains (obstacles to reform) instead of building a tunnel through them. Introducing a single-payer healthcare system, Hayes points out, would be “putting a tunnel through a very, very big mountain.”

While reform was possible in the times of the New Deal, it seems that today Washington has lost the ability to find the shortest and most cost-effective way to get from point A to point B.

—Olga Razumovskaya

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