I'd also point out howvever that Greg F is also a damned good guy.

Why, thank you, kind sir. And many happy returns to you.

...the real problem (which in my opinion) is a wasted expenditure to protect their stock holders' interests...

That's certainly one of the problems, Bruce, and a major one- but that's also inherent in the driving force behind capitalism: unbridled greed. Until we turn things around in the US so that providing medical care instead of generating profits is the objective, we're screwed.

Its depressing to note that the US went thru a similar situation of unbridled capitalism screwing the country over during the Gilded Age a century ago & it was a hard fight for progressives like Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican, by the way, back when the Republican Party wasn't the reactionary joke it has become today) to get things back on track & rein in the "malefactors of great wealth".

This entire history has apparently been forgotten by (or never taught to- but the failures of the educational system is a whole different problem) a substantial portion of the population. Just as the generation who remembers the 1920's, the Great Depression and how things actually were before the New Deal has pretty much died off & the reality of that era has been replaced by more bullshit and invented "memory". But I digress...

Worse than the 'rule of greed', opponents of a decent health care ( which care the rest of the civilized world has somehow managed to provide its citizens with for some deacdes) realizing that there's no way in hell thay can win the arguement on the merits & on the basis of factual information, have resorted to lies, half-truths, invention and absolute fantasy to scare the livin' crap out of ignorant & uninformed individuals. Demagogic control by unending bullshit. I hope some of the posters here recognize themselves. That way lies fascism.

This I find inexcusable in a country with pretensions to democratic government. And if the spewers of bullshit take offence at my calling them on their spew - well, screw 'em.


In a sordid slime harmonious Greed was born in yonder ditch,
With a longing in his bosom and for others' goods an itch.
As Christ died to make men holy, let men die to make us rich
Our god is marching on.
   
                        -   Mark Twain, 1900


Plus ça change ...