The Republicans have made a strategy of convincing the rubes to vote against their own interests.

If the Democrats fail at passing some form of national health care, we will then know our two-party political system is hopelessly corrupt, and those of us who have supported the Democratic Party -- and their election-year posturings -- are just a smarter bunch of rubes.

I don't think you're quite with it, Keillor. Health care is one good competing with all the rest (foolish convenience store bric a brac, idiotically exclusive watercraft, e.a.). Will a person have more or less resources available to devote to this good based on how successfully he and his ancestors have worked, or how well he or groups he associates himself with are able to exercise political influence?

I am 71 and probably one of many who pay health insurance (Medicare and gap insurance)and can't afford to get a yearly (even bi-yearly) physical. On a budget that is not much over the poverty line, the cost (not covered by Medicare or gap insurance) of a physical is far more than my family can afford. This old health care/health insurance debate seems to forget the basic facts of preventive care ie: blood work for hidden conditions and the corrections one needs for keeping on top of any troubling problems. I'd love to see our country talk about health CARE for a change, our health insurance doesn't buy us much!

Reading Mr Keillor's column today I was struck by the political diversity that exists in Minnesota, Michelle Bachman to Al Franken with Garrison Keillor for good measure, a very quixotic place indeed. (Kind of like California, except we don't have to wear space suits 5 months out of the year)

"A permanent, ignorant, poverty stricken underclass, too desperate and bewildered to focus on anything but food and shelter, is an easy target for the propaganda (funded by the wealthy) of fear and afterlife hope, delivered by right wing goons and religious witch doctors. A self perpetuating dystopia."

You, sir, have succinctly and precisely stated the case.

thanks to the indolent and callow fellow for the once a week castigating of public servants. you do it better than anyone garrison

For a succinct argument for single-payer care -- and good ammo for discussions with "conservatives" -- watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKDaFE5flb4

Write your novel Garrison, as for Universal Health Care, I just ain't got no "Confidence, Man." Indolent and callow, God I love my Country and the English language and those that write good. Humoristically written..write well. You do!!!

We'll be seeing more letters such as the ones here that say seeking a health-care policy is like giving people free food and free housing and convenience-store bric-a-brac. The issue is not what's a right, it's what makes a good policy move. There's no "right" to chlorinated drinking water, it's just a good idea. There's no "right" to having guardrails on highways, but it's a good policy move.

I was astonished to learn that in World War II -- "the good war" -- 50 percent of the men called to service were rejected for chronic medical problems aggravated by the decade of the Great Depression. Tuberculosis, malnutrition, vision problems, parasites and other ailments that kept people from being soldiers or airmen or sailors. In the Iraq war, about 40 percent of National Guardsmen called up needed remedial dentail work. No surprise, most folks I knew in the Guard were in it to supplement their paychecks. No wonder then that one of teh first national healthcare initiaitives was set up by Prussia's Frederick the Great.

Health care isn't some kind of namby-pamby feelgood hippie scheme. It's solid policy.

I've been uninsured for years, since going "freelance" when jobs in my field a crumbled. It's tough. For a minor eye injury couple years ago, I paid the hospital emergency room $600 out of pocket -- actually, I put it on credit card. Look where that got me. So GO Obama, go demis, give us some real, basic, no-frills, honest health care.

But Garrison, an aside... I've been a fan for decades, since mid-70's sometime. I've read several novels of yours. And I've never heard a more boring show from you than last week's broadcast from Avon, Minn. Tedious, truly. I finally turned it off and did something more interesting: washing the dishes.

FWIW.. I had the misfortune of tripping over a curb in Paris some 4 years ago this aug.. the care i received was par excellence.. Nobody asked if i had insurance.. the first thing i was told was not to worry they would care for me.It was determined that i had broken my hip and required surgery.. after 6 days ..operation, etc.. private room total bill was comparable to $8400 US dollars.Medical care was top notch. After returning to the states.. i had to have another operation for fractured wrist.. 1 night in hospital and ortho surgery total cost $ 14000. US dollars. First thing i was asked was who was my insurance policy with. Insurance and drug companies have far to much clout in this country.

Thx G.Keillor for this article..

"Shelter is as primary as health care: where's the free guaranteed housing for people who can't afford rent or purchase?"

Except in a few cities where shortages are produced by rent controls, shelter is a nationwide free market, with romping competition in every part of it. Whatever our problems with housing may be, high prices are not among them.

Medicine, on the other hand, is overpriced because every part of it is a monopoly. Corporations have inveigled governments into granting them restrictions on the number of places in medical schools, government-imposed restrictions on who can practice, government-backed power of the prescription pad, and government-managed restrictions on the number of hospital beds and MRI machines a community can have. To summarize, medicine is massively overpriced because the industry is being managed as corporate socialism.

Now many Democrats are proposing single payer as an alternative. The healthcare monopoly objects to this not because it is socialism, but because it's not their socialism.