Speaking of health care...

...if you haven't developed the Bob Herbert habit lately, you're missing one of the issue's most forthright and important voices.

Here's a tease from his latest piece to tempt you.

The U.S. has the most expensive health care system on the planet, but millions of Americans without access to care die from illnesses that could have been successfully treated if diagnosed in time. Poor people line up at emergency rooms for care that should be provided in a doctor's office or clinic. Each year tens of thousands of men, women and children die from medical errors and many more are maimed.

But when you look for leadership on these issues, you find yourself staring into the void. If you want to get physicians' representatives excited, ask them about tort reform, not patient care. Elected officials give lip service to health care issues, but at the end of the campaign day their allegiance goes to the highest bidders, and they are never the people who put patients first.

And here, again, is a link to the DCCC's Patient's Bill of Rights petition.

Help 'em out. It's our issue if we take it. Nobody else seems to want it.