Obama says we can't afford to switch over to a single-payer health insurance program because we are in a financial crisis. Well, look when the United Kingdom switched over...right after World War II when the country was still devastated by German bombs and awash in war debt! The fact is that Mr. Obama is beholden to the transnational corporate oligarchy for his current employment and will do just about anything to preserve the status quo on their behalf.

The "health insurance" companies deserve ZERO consideration in reforming the system and NO PLACE at the table in consequence of their terrible behavior over the past ten years, raising premiums at double the rate of inflation, denying coverage, etc. We're all to familiar with the details. If they were still acting in a semi-reasonable fashion, as they were in the early 1990's, they may have some ethical claim to consideration. But not anymore! The Nazis were not consulted over the formation of the United Nations, but put on trial for crimes against humanity. Right now Americans are dying at a rate of about 1000 a month due to not having or being inadequately covered by medical insurance. That's a self-inflicted 911 every two months! We've fought decade-long wars on the other side of the planet on far less provocation!

The anti-"socialized medicine" garbage propaganda on television is beyond contempt. Access to medical care needs to be available to all Americans without burdensome cost and complexity. Other countries have invented systems that do exactly that. Why we can't simply adapt an already proven system is an unfathomable mystery. How stupid are we to keep electing slimy, corrupt lackeys of the financial elite to our highest public offices?

If Americans can somehow be immunized against voting for ignorant, intellectually limited, and mentally disturbed politicians again, then the current crop of Republican lunatics may provide a priceless example of a major party self-destructing as a result of its own parochialism, stupidity, and psychosis.

As a registered Republican, I've been hoping for the party members to recognize the painful political suicide they are committing, purge their ranks of the air-headed whack jobs, and get back to the business of promoting thrift, responsibility, Constitutional rights, and a foreign policy based on international cooperation rather than thuggery. However, it seems that after being freed from the feudal loyalty they may have felt for arch-criminals Bush and Cheney, many Republicans have reacted to their new out-of-office status to ratchet up the snarling and the irrational thought processes. Hey, fellow Republicans, why do you think you no longer control the Executive or the Legisative branches? If you really wanted to reestablish yourselves in the favor of the voters, you would be moving in the other direction. What is needed now is a calm, rational, and articulate counter to some of the more un-American suggestions coming out of the Obama White House, such as the proposal to set up an indefinite detention program. The bill now in Congress to audit the Federal Reserve System is just the kind of Republican-initiated legislation that will get favorable attention from today's voters.

Oh, well, one can hope that the kinder, gentler, smarter, more civil Republicans may migrate over to an existing party like the Liberterians or found a new one based on Jeffersonian rather than Hamiltonian, principles. Republicans...the new Whigs!

Put me down as Another Republican for Single Payer Universal Medical Insurance!

For the life of me, I don't know why Americans pretend that a government-managed medical insurance program would be an innovation that would have to be invented from scratch. Practically every other civilized country in the world has a program like this and I have heard of no instance in which politicians in any of those countries are seeking to abolish their government-managed medical insurance and subject their people to the uncertainties and abuses inherent in a setup like our private insurance mish-mash (you can't really call it a program or a system). We could easily set up a commission to look at the medical insurance programs of Britain, Norway, Germany, Japan, etc. and use them as the basis for creating our own. All the garbage about "death panels" could more easily be put to rest.

The abuses of the public trust by private medical insurance companies in exorbitant premium charges, reductions in coverage, etc. have been so monumental over the last nine years that I believe they have no ethical claim to a role in deciding what our national policy will be. They have FORFEITED a place at the table by their bad behavior.

Look at it this way: my medical insurance premiums (what my employer pays plus my contribution, not even counting my "co-pays" and deductibles)amount to about TWO TIMES what I pay in Federal Income Tax. If I was paying into a government-managed medical insurance system, I'm sure that many economies could be instituted (no profit margin, larger number of "lives", streamlined billing and payment), so the same amount I am currently paying would not only cover my family, but at least part of the premiums of a currently uninsured citizen.

Universal Medical Insurance is really a no brainer...but here's a kicker for you: do you really want to live in a society where people with contagious infectious diseases like TB are walking around untreated, coughing and sneezing on you, because they don't think they could afford to pay for medical care?

Hey, fellow Republicans! Get a grip on reality and support Universal Medical Insurance!