The threat turns out to be more visceral and urgent than any of us could have imagined. Yes, some people live in alternate realities. What’s worse, though, is when they have power to impose those realities on the rest of us. That’s what we’re seeing in Tennessee and elsewhere, and the results will be as tragic as they are predictable and preventable.

No one has to get the shot, but no one should have to employ those who won’t. Playtime is over.

Ask Americans to name a problem with our healthcare system, and you’ll hear a range of answers, from insurance bureaucracy to overbooked doctors to the inadequacies of Medicaid. Only a very few will name Medicare’s drug benefit, known as Part D.

People who are tenacious, overcome obstacles and succeed used to be part of the American story, a story we were happy to share to encourage others. What happened to it? Why do we focus less on success and more on envying and penalizing the successful? Why is there the constant drumbeat in our politics and most of the media about the unsuccessful and the proposals by certain politicians to throw good money after bad on programs that have mostly not worked?