We can't build cars, American manufacturing is a mere shadow of what it once was, steel is all but gone, our public education system is approaching bankruptcy, our financial system is broken, our highways and bridges are falling apart, and our movie industry has capitulated to immature idiots.

And we've been trying to fix our healthcare problems for over 50 years.

So we elect a president promising healthcare reform and immediately forces are lined up against him. Are we stupid, or what.

A hospital in California charges $250,000. for a quadruple bypass operation. The insurance company refuses to pay that amount and replies that it will pay $150,000. for the procedure. The hospital accepts this as payment in full. This is like bargaining for trinkets in Tijuana. (A patient without insurance would be obligated to pay $250,000).

What kind of a corrupt system is this? When players "game" the system everyone loses. Numbers become meaningless so true costs are buried or manipulated into whatever it takes to make the most profit.

This is not healthcare. This is corrupted capitalism every bit as dirty as the "bargains" in Tijuana or Madoff's pozi schemes.

As long as we're a population of TV watchers, Fox News believers, and worshippers of a God that wants everyone to live in large houses, we'll have conservatives.

This report states that the government receives $15. back for every $1. spent investigating and recovering money in Medicare fraud cases.

http://www.taf.org/FCA-2006report.pdf

We're trained, from birth, that materialism trumps knowledge, that knowledge leads to materialism, which is what America is all about.

Healthcare, therefore, is just another business to be gamed by the system and sucked dry from profit-taking.

Meaningful health care reform cannot happen in a corrupt system like this.

Speaking of "picking and choosing", you omitted the part of the Second Amendment that states: "A well-regulated militia ...".

Here is the full reading of the Amendment: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

If you are going to cite the Amendment you should include the first part, without which the Amendment makes no sense.

are racists or homophobes. Why is that?

It will reduce the bloating and the gas.

So, with the huge mess that Bush and the GOP left what did you expect Obama to do? Undoing Bush's mistakes and the miscarriage of GOP governance takes drastic steps, and positive results are beginning to emerge.

Obama's heavy hand is why he was elected.

When Standard Oil destroyed public transit in California we saw the free market in action. It proved that a handful of profiteers could undermine the wishes of the people and enrich themselves in the process.

This has been repeated many times over in the health industry. Instead of starting with the premise of "people first" we began with "profits first". This is not healthcare. It is a financial money machine for a handful of people.

Our "democratic" Congress is not democratic at all. The halls of Congress are jammed with lobbyists representing narrow interests with one objective - profit.

So let's stop kidding ourselves. Our God is money and all else exists to that end.

The media blowhards have polluted the discourse so as to render mainstream reporting almost useless.

This is another example of how a corporate mentality can seep into a free press, against the explicit wishes of our founding fathers.

"In 1974, Rose met Bill Moyers at a social event, and soon after he began working at PBS as the managing editor of Bill Moyers' International Report. The team had fantastic chemistry and in 1975, Rose became executive producer of Bill Moyers' Journal. The following year, Rose became the correspondent for U.S.A.: People and Politics, Moyers' weekly political magazine. "A Conversation with Jimmy Carter," one installment of that series, won a 1976 Peabody Award.

When Moyers left PBS in 1976, Rose accepted the post of political correspondent for NBC News, based in Washington, D.C. There, he hosted numerous interview shows. In 1979, he was hired by KXAS-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth to do a talk show that eventually developed into The Charlie Rose Show.

In 1981, The Charlie Rose Show moved to Washington, D.C., where it was broadcast on the NBC-owned station WRC-TV. Two years later, CBS hired Rose to anchor Nightwatch, which was broadcast during the middle-of-the-night timeslot (2 a.m. - 6 a.m.). He hosted the show for six years and earned an Emmy Award in 1987 for his interview with Charles Manson.

In 1990, Rose left CBS to serve as anchor of Personalities, which ended soon after Rose discovered the tabloid nature of the program. Nearly a year later, he approached PBS to produce an interview show of his own. Charlie Rose debuted in 1991, and was syndicated nationally in 1993.

Every weekday from 11 p.m. to midnight on PBS, Rose engages America's best thinkers, writers, politicians, athletes, entertainers, business leaders, scientists and other newsmakers. His signature round oak table and black backdrop have become television icons to his legions of fans. In addition, Rose launched Charlie Rose Special Edition, which profiles such prominent entertainers as Meryl Streep and Garth Brooks, as well as week-long specials on science news like the Human Genome Project. He also hosts a series called Great Masters , which takes an in-depth look at the lives and works of various artists. In addition, he is a correspondent for 60 Minutes II."

The conservatives created Fox News because they needed a forum without challenges to their narrow points of view.

With very few exceptions, conservatives were being beat up on talk shows presented on many of the "mainstream" media outlets and the only way tey could present their views unchallenged was to create Fox News.

This is unfortunate. As bad as network news is, Fox is much worse and the fact that it draws a large audience is due to the needs of too many Americans wanting someone to do their thinking for them.