Originally Posted by Angel Of Mercy

Gort: "Klaatu barada nikto." Sucker. You fell for the fried ice cream hook, like and sinker.

I don't know who your friends are or what their politics are...but the VAST middle of America wants Single-Payer Healthcare run by the government...and they wouldn't mind higher taxes to get it. In case you haven't been paying attention--and the radical right is notoriously deficient in that repect--the US is the ONLY First World country that doesn't have it. The. Only. One. What we have is a system whose parameters are dictated by those least qualified to be in charge: The HMO's, the insurance companies and Big Pharma. America spends more than any country in the world for healthcare and gets the least return on the investment.

Wanna see what cheap-labor conservative ideals have dome to America? Let's go to the videotape!

The Index of Social Progress, released by the Fifth International Conference of the International Society for Life Quality Studies, ranks 163 nations We aren't first. Denmark holds that distinction. As a matter of fact, we aren't even in the top 25! How about those apples? We're 27th, which puts us at the approximate level of Poland and Slovenia. The Society has determined that chronic poverty is the greatest threat to our social progress, since 33 million Americns--12 million of them children!--are poor. Contrary to popular perception, the majority of the poor in this country are members of established households who work full-time and are white. Read that again...just to make sure you've got it. NO OTHER economically advantaged nation tolerates such a level of poverty. Other factors impeding social progress include slow economic growth, increasing unemployment, insecure access to adequate healthcare and deteriorating schools in urban areas. Sounds like the whole GOP agenda, doesn't it? This puts the lie to any disingenuous rhetoric about an "Ownership Society," which really means to most of us that 'we're on our own.' Rightwad politicians hate prosperity and are bent upon turning America into one big banana republic. Doing a bloody good job of it, too

This depressing scenario is further bolstered by the United Nations' Human Development Index which reveals that, among wealthy nations, we have the highest infant mortality rate, (Higher than Cuba. CUBA!!) the highest teen birth rate, (THERE's your abstinence-only success story!), the highest child abuse rate, the highest child injury death rate and the greatest in-country gaps in mortality rates. Of the 25 wealthiest nations, only two have a lower average life expectancy than we do and we have the highest probability at birth of not reaching age 60. America's healthcare, if judged by any standards other than how much we spend on it and the rate of profitability of our leading drug manufacturers, is pretty pathetic. Other wealthy countries provide universal social protection (Hello, France!), offer a generally less punitive vision for social life and the result is that they live longer and are healthier. And--I'm just guessing here--happier.

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke on it for a while...