The trick, however, will be to put those twenty-five people inside the various health reform ideas that will be bandied about in the coming year. How will those people fare under a vision of reform advanced by the insurance companies, the American Medical Association, the hospitals, the pols, and others who think they have the secret sauce for a revamped system? Will each of those profiled by the Inquirer be helped by reform, or will they still fall through the cracks? Those stories have been lacking in the coverage so far, and we challenge the Inquirer to move its series to another level of reporting when the real debate begins.

Trudy Lieberman is a fellow at the Center for Advancing Health and a longtime contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. She is the lead writer for The Second Opinion, CJR’s healthcare desk, which is part of our United States Project on the coverage of politics and policy. Follow her on Twitter @Trudy_Lieberman.