Everybody knows that it’s for-profit, "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" or "damn the people, more profit for me". Mr Horace Cooper where is he coming from, he is a typical Republican conservative. He wants us to set up a situation that allows everybody to bid against each other – trip to the bottom to lower wages, wonderful !!!

Global -- What negotiating in secret are you talking about? They did not change the rules of the senate or house. The adhered to the rules and passed what was available rather than make minor improvements which would have allowed a filibuster by senators representing about 35% of the people.

Rammed through? No. It was painstakingly negotiated. That one party passed it was just resultant of nascent Republican obstructionism. Democrats reached out to Republicans and got Olympia Snowe to vote for the draft but Republican leadership made her regret it. Minority leader of the Senate Mitch McConnel was afraid of the bill getting the imprimatur of bipartisanship and kept the Republican senators on a tight leash.

That one party passed it is not the fault of Democrats or Democrats' partisanship it was quite the opposite. It was already the Republicans putting partisanship and politics over the well being of the nation and but for the 2 Independents voting with the Democrats it would have been another, earlier instance of Republican obstructionism and filibuster.

In the House all 178 Republicans voted against, seeking an obstructionism they were not yet capable of, with 34 Democrats. Whose fault is it that it was passed by one party? Democrats'? Hell no! Democrats don't vote in lockstep putting partisan politics over the good of the country (like the Republicans do), they vote their conscience. I remember as early as 1994 when the Republican National Committee issuing an edict to all Republican legislators of both houses that if they didn't vote against Bill Clinton's crime bill they would be cut off of any campaign funds, got all Republicans, without exception, to vote against a Democratic Presidents' bill. Then too was started the practice of voting against bills that were universally considered a good idea because they didn't want Democrats getting the credit for them. That is not something you see Democrats do ever.

We don't wanna be doing Israel's foreign policy. We support them more than enough other ways.

Thanks Global, I appreciate that.

Obamacare is what it is because he tried to accommodate the mighty insurance lobby. He couldn't beat 'em so he joined 'em. The insurance lobby is what makes single payer "not politically viable" as the politicians say. I like what Ralph Nader said about that, to paraphrase, roughly - How is something the majority of Americans want 'not politically viable'? - Shows people vote with dollar bills in this country.

As far as the imperialism argument, I think it's sometimes more than a little specious. For example, the promise that people can keep their current insurance and then it's eliminated because it doesn't meet new requirements of coverage, they then only have to go on the exchange and find an as good, if not better, plan. Then right wing "libertarians" effectively ask, "But what if they don't want a better plan?" There are some things you can know are good for people without "deciding for people what's good for them", as it were.

Take unions, for example, "right to work" - as though somebody would rather not have a negotiator for better pay and conditions or an advocate when having trouble with the boss with the inevitable result of better pay, conditions and job security.

You gotta not fall for the Big Business PR or Propaganda. They'll repackage and sell you anything, your own self destruction. Always use your own mind and "follow the money" when you wanna figure out who to believe.

Global -- Rammed through? Loss of majority rule was due to maniputation by the power brokers of the republican party. The democrats in the house represent 1.5 million more people. Such organization as redflag.org (sp?) bragged about how they manipulated the outcome of the 2010 election.

Thom keeps asking for any law the republicans have passed since Reagan that helped the 99% more than the 1%. So far no one has come up with an answer. Every law to support the 99% has to be passed by one party -- the democratic party. One republican voted for the ACA and that party beat up on him.

Thom said, "bombs and drones are not the only way to resolve international conflict".

Ah yes Thom, quite right. Unfortunately they are the MOST PROFITABLE way of resolving conflict and that is the world we live in today, one oriented towards profit above ALL else.

If we talked away all the conflict in the world, what would the military industrial complex do for a crust? What would the country do with all the money we saved? How would we employ all the people we didn't kill?

No, this simply wouldn't work in today's world!

I think more states will follow Vermonts lead. As more people find that the so called "affordible" health care act isn't affordable & end up uninsured, states will be forced to consider alternitives, insurance companies be dammed.

People seeking care in emergency rooms will overwhelm the system, death rates will rise from those seeking help too late.

Single payer is the best alternaitive to expensive private for PROFIT insurance. The insurance companies will then be left with insuring boob jobs, tummy tucks & dick tricks.

Everyone will have to pay a tax to support that single payer system, people will be unable to opt out like now & everyone will be covered for basic health care, no 80 YO will be eligible for heart transplants unless of course their like Dick Chainey - rich.

But with horrible decisions made by the corrupt federal government, the economy will crash & all efforts to provide everyone with access to health care will fall by the wayside. Unless we drasticly change course & raise tariffs, raise taxes on the rich & big corporations many of whom pay no taxes at all, recind all our awful free trade agreements, dump "citizens" united, remove the cap on S.S., end China's most favored nation statis, end all immigration etc etc we are doomed.

Dan -- I will try to feret out Ravi's words that support my favorite saying "Increase the deficit to reduce the debt". For now, things of note are deficit means to invest in our infrastructure to create an economic machine to devour our debt. Debt does not mean that $17 trillion of public debt. The debt that economists are concerned about is the debt to GDP ratio. The economic machine increases the denominator (GDP) more rapidly than it increases the numerator (debt). Elizabeth Warren has a quote in Time magazine that says what I am saying. She says "to stop investing is like cutting off your feet to save money on shoes." I do not disagree to wake up the "tea partiers" to this dynamic will probably require the crashing of our economy.

The thing I remember Dr. Batra saying was that when the deficit becomes small the stock market crashes. I need to spend some time researching or just searching.

It would save money and effort if we payed them to do away with Nukes.

A Lot of countrys use the US nuclear arsenal as a nuclear umbrella, thus saving their treasure.

It is a waste of resources simply because the Iranian government are not American allys.

Hopefully somehow the Iranian government becomes amiable and will tolerate infidels.

I think a lot of this was brought on by our behavior in installing the Shah and so forth.

Let's see Chuckie, it was legislation rammed through entirely by one party. And I suspect that the loss of democrat majority rule in the House of Representatives was due to this power over reach. That would constitute a large section of The voting population that really was not all in for Obamacare. Just making a philosophical comparison to Mark's definition of imperialism.