Forty-seven million Americans don't have health insurance, and 8.7 million of them are children according to just-released census data. The numbers signal a disturbing trend: the number of uninsured are rising (even as the median income rises) and still President Bush is vocal in his opposition to expanding a program that could extend insurance to 5 to 6 million children, by levying higher taxes on tobacco products. Ah, the great moral quandary: healthy kids or healthy profit margins for Big Tobacco?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opposes the S-CHIP health care program for children, despite the fact that more than 100,000 Kentucky children are enrolled in it. Why? Follow the money.

From the front page of today's Washington Post a reminder of the power of the pharmaceutical lobby. Democratic leadership had a bill in mind for a goverment-run prescription drug program designed to cut costs for senior citizens. Then the drug lobby - and their checkbooks- started knocking at the door and cutting health care costs took a backseat to appeasing them.