Health Care and a trip in the time machine

The Iowa Journal tries to get their arms around the debate of health care reform. The issue is huge and we take our bite tonight. We look at the "Summer of Discontent" when lawmakers went to their home districts to hold regularly scheduled town meetings. Those meetings were dominated by healthcare discussion. At times, it got loud, even a little uncomfortable. What does that mean? Will that help us solve any issues?

The reform bill is moving forward. What does this mean to insurance, hospitals and those helping craft the changes?

Great question, Paul.

We just happen to have people from those fields in our studio for tonight's show. We'll put the Iowa Journal on the monitors seen in the picture above.

Three guests with stakes in the health care debate will be in our studio: Iowa State Senator Jack Hatch, (D-Des Moines), chair of the White House Working Group of State Legislators for Health Reform; Kirk Norris, president/CEO of the Iowa Hospital Association; and Joe Teeling, chairman and CEO of Bearence Management Group, a consulting group that helps employers with the purchase of health insurance.

In our efforts to get more topics in the show, we've also hop into the time machine to go back to 1959. That year Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev took a whirlwind trip through the U.S. including a stop in Iowa. The story includes interviews with Khrushchev's son who made the 1959 trip with his father, and Roswell Garst’s granddaughter, Liz Garst, who was 8 years old when Khrushchev visited her grandfather's farm.

See if you notice any changes in the beginning of the show tonight. We are trying some things. See if you notice.

On a personal note, no baby yet. We are close, due date is Friday. We just hope to not deliver on the side of the road like our friends Brad and Carie. Great story here about their experience earlier this week. I did blog about it here with the link to the WQAD story. http://tr.im/zsJW

Maybe the monkey knows what the delay is all about.

See you tonight at 8p on IPTV in full HD. Also Friday at 630p.

If you watch The Office or Grey's or CSI, we are commercial free. No commercials to skip through on our program. So, watch us in real time and record the other show.

The entire show will be posted on Friday to www.iptv.org/iowajournal Some parts of the show are already posted.

We also have an official Iowa Journal Twitter page at www.twitter.com/IowaJournal

Thank you for reading this far.