I guess I'd start with "just how selfish are you?"

And then I might follow up with, that's fine and well for you now, when you are fairly young and fairly healthy, and have no money worries. Will you feel the same, and ask people to kick you to the curb, when your health fails, through no fault of your own? How about when your company lays you off, even though you've been a star performer? Or when someone you love faces the same troubles? Will you deny your loved one your help?

These folks might say yes, because that's their mindset. They might laud that behavior as a demonstration of independence.

But I think it is more rightly called uncivilized, and anti-humanitarian.

The human condition is such that NONE OF US is completely independent, no matter how self-sufficient we think we are. For example, how well do retail store owners do when no one is there to buy their merchandise?

You might as well say, how did you raise yourself? Did you self-train on the toilet? Teach yourself the English language? What? You mean someone else cooked your meals when you were little? Gave you baths before you knew what soap was? How shameful of you. How...dependent. How...helpless.

Did you learn math without a teacher? Discover Ayn Rand without a librarian? Do you perform your own colonoscopy on yourself? Draw your own blood for a routine checkup? Cut out your own appendix after self-diagnosing appendicitis? You mean you don't? You like having a nurse to help? A doctor to perform the test, or surgery? My God, you are so...weak. So...dependent. So...human.

I'd say, it's a damn good thing someone had mercy on you when you were helpless. How dare you fail to pay that back. How dare you suggest that you got where you are with no help from anyone.

I'd say, read a little Dr. Seuss. We stand on the backs of many turtles. We stand on the backs of our ancestors, as well. And those of us who can admit we are not the be-all and end-all all by ourselves are stronger for being able to admit we are grateful for others.

And we do not feel it is a burden to return the favor, even if we are paying it forward, to someone who did not personally help us, even if what we provide may be something we never need in return. We are grateful to be a part of the human family, and pleased to do our part to help maintain a healthy civilization.

Trouble comes to one and all, and can be unpredictable, undeserved, and overwhelming.

A civilized, humane society helps out those who are down. Ayn Rand was WRONG. It's high time we bury her ill-conceived ideas.

...what would you say in a meeting like that?

"Excuse me, but you folks are all crazy. I thought we were going to talk about health-care in the USA, not the foundations of morality. I'm out of here."

Just last night my 'conservative' friend attended a Capitalist Club Meeting consisting of her fellow business school graduates and Ayn Rand devotees. The topic was health care and whether to nationalize it. I asked her about the discussion afterward, wishing I could have been there because apparently, no one defended socialized medicine. She said the conversation centered on a fundamental philosophical point. Whether an individual alone is responsible for their destiny or whether we should be forced to be our brothers' keeper. I could barely sleep last night, composing arguments in my head. I mean, Salon readers, what would you say in a meeting like that?

You should caricature Dr Paul more often.

Tom Tomorrow is right on the money with this comic strip. Kudos!

In response to the comment that suggested people without good health insurance have low IQs, even if that were true, it is no excuse for lack of affordable basic health care in a nation that prizes human rights.

The mistake a lot of people make is to assume that what they have is something that everyone else could have, if only they'd get off their butts and work for it.

Not true. Is there really anyone out there who has not heard of good people being laid off in bad times?

But take another factor---youth. One day you have it, the next you don't.

Just try living without getting a day older.

I'm not talking about taking care of your health---eating right, exercising, not smoking. I'm talking about the actual number of years you have been alive.

Did you know that many health insurance companies and corporations now consider anyone over 40 old, too old to hire or to cover for health needs? This is at a time when life expectancy is higher than ever.

Life is fatal. Everyone who doesn't die young will age. Everyone who ages is at greater risk for disease.

No one is immune to life. A high IQ is no protection. Neither is education, or a strong work ethic. And even if it were, I would find it disturbing to live in a country so uncivilized as to price certain groups of people out of basic health care.

The situation is already bad. We don't need to make it worse. We need single payer, universal, national health CARE.

CARE, not INSURANCE.

Big difference.

Tom nailed it in that panel. It's true. My father is dead thanks to Humana Healthcare Systems. A team of doctors decided on a course of treatment, Humana denied that treatment and forced my father under the care of a hack. Thanks to laws against suing HMOs, we had no recourse. He spent the next 13 months in a hospice, instead of the recommended rehab. He had 5 cases of pneumonia and over a dozen pressure wounds (bed sores - illegal in the State of Florida) before he finally died. It didn't matter how much we pleaded with the doctor or the insurance company. In the end, his original doctor summed it up perfectly: "It's more cost effective to Humana for your dad to die than live."

I spent four years working for one of the insurance companies mentioned on the second page of comments. We were told routinely to deny expensive claims before even reviewing them. We weren't to even consider them until the customer appealed the denial.

People can wax poetic about not wanting the government to determine their health care choices, but anything is better than a company who finds it more advantageous to have sick people die than to allow them to find quality health care. Until you have had to watch a loved one suffer at the hands of the bottom line, you have no idea the pain and heartbreak our health care system can cause.