Washington Post — In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Say No?
 
With the president overseas, the ideologically flexible Rahm Emanuel opened the door rather widely to the notion of a health plan with a government-run component that would only go into effect if new proposals for private insurance fail to produce the desired result. A murmur ran through liberal interest groups, still smarting from recent reversals on global warming, transparency, gay rights and the war on terror from the administration. The concern was enough that the president had to issue a brief statement from Moscow reasserting his commitment to a national health service.

What Emanuel was trying to save Obama from was the battle that writer Alec MacGillis lays out in a useful piece – the coming fight over rationing.