DougR - "I often wonder, though, if one reason so many of you are satisfied is because so few of you have ever known anything else?"

That is precisely the problem with Americans, Doug! They've never known anything else. They've been told all their lives that they live in "the greatest country on Earth", and they think that means the greatest in EVERY way! That's ignorance. That is gross ignorance in fact. But it's not a sin to be ignorant...it simply means that one doesn't know about something, that's all.

I do know the difference, however, by direct experience. I and my parents lived in the USA for 10 years. We now live in a country with a single payer government-run health plan, and I regard it as the only sane and responsible alternative.

Recent polls have been done here about our Canadian health system. 87% of Canadians approve of it and consider it far better than what the USA has. 7% of Canadians would prefer a USA-style system with coverage by private insurers. The remaining 6% had no opinion.

I repeat...ignorance is not a sin. I am not condemning Americans in terms of their character when I say that many of them are ignorant regarding government-run single payer health coverage. I am simply saying they don't know much about it (if anything) and that their fear of it and their fear of "socialism" is based upon their fear of what they don't know about. They'd rather have the devil they're familiar with than the angel they've never met.

That is exactly what your private insurance companies count on...they are protected by public ignorance. Public ignorance will keep them in control of the situation and will keep them rich. The fact that they ARE rich will enable them to keep the American public ignorant by filling the media airwaves with disinformation and false scare stories about "socialism". It's a self-perpetuating fraud, and it is accomplished by lobbying with massive amounts of money.

You have a society now that is of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. That's not what your founding fathers promised you back in 1776. Were they lying? Not necessarily. But things have changed since then.