"War is hell!" Kend declares. Yeah and theft is theft. In this case, land theft. Isn't "colonialism" the polite way of saying it? - Alice I.W.

I think this may be another example of your illogic, Kend. Usually you're feigning stupidity, this time I think it might be the drinks you had last night hanging over. It does not necessarily follow at all that level of care has to go down if cost doesn't go up. The cost of health care in the U.S., hitherto, has been largely administrative. ACA mandates that 80% of the money insurance companies take in go to actual care provision and not to the administering of insurance or the CEO's salary like it did before. Even better would be excluding private insurance all together and giving it all to the government. That would bring the administrative cost to 3% and 97% would go to care.

I don't accept that the level of care would go down. I hear very different reports from other Canadians about their healthcare system and I lived in West Germany and heard no complaints about their system, however, I hear very MANY complaints about our healthcare system from visitors from Canada, Germany and elsewhere.

Our level of care is good only for the rich. It's often already pretty dismal for everyone else.

That's right Kend. The United States took half of Mexico - which was also sparsely populated and still relatively is in many parts - in 1846. We were manifesting our destiny.

This is why many Mexicans feel entitled to come to live in places like California which some of them call "occupied Mexico".

I often wish you Canadians had at some point over run and conquered us and civilized our savage asses.

Quote Kend:DAnne, I believe in single payer for basic health but there has to be a mix of private and public. Canada is the only country in the world that has only public And it isn't working very well. I should say since a supreme court decession in the 1990's we do have private clinics for non life threatening surgeries like knees and shoulders. As we have waiting lists for up to a year for those in some parts of Canada.

I think what Americans are missing with ACA is although everyone is covered I am very confident your level of care will drop. It has everywhere else in the world.

Kend ~ I fail to see what you mean by "level of care will drop." The way I see it, any care is a far higher level of care than no care. Unless, of course, you mean for the fortunate people who already are blessed with care? If that is the case, shame on you.

You don't have to worry about private insurance. There will always be a fair market for them to exist--just like they exist in Mexico and many other countries--in check. They can compete with private clinics and hospitals who also exist in Mexico as well. Prices at those institutions are affordable. Imagine that! The only thing that will be lacking is the monopoly over all health care private insurance used to enjoy in this country; and, the lack of competition that enables them to charge anything they want for coverage. The situation overall will dramatically improve for everyone. I have no doubt we will ever question that.

We can all thank the private insurance industry for one thing--the existence of Medicare. If it wasn't for the obtuse and shortsighted greed of the unchecked insurance industry there never would have been the profit hungry desire to boot all the most costly customers off the insurance claim payrolls. Thanks to the insurance industries blind greed and shortsightedness we already have in place a functional and proven single-payer health care system in this country; that, when push comes to shove will easily take over for the ACA. Thank you, health insurance industry. The only thing you've ever done right. The party's over.

DAnne, I believe in single payer for basic health but there has to be a mix of private and public. Canada is the only country in the world that has only public And it isn't working very well. I should say since a supreme court decession in the 1990's we do have private clinics for non life threatening surgeries like knees and shoulders. As we have waiting lists for up to a year for those in some parts of Canada.

I think what Americans are missing with ACA is although everyone is covered I am very confident your level of care will drop. It has everywhere else in the world.

Just a reminder for all you JFK conspiracy fans...yet another docudrama about the assassination of JFK will premier tonight on REELZ (299 on Dish). I don't know much about this except for the little I have read. Something like the Australian police investigator turned author after investigating for 4 years and after getting hold of all the released Warren Commission evidence that was supposed to be locked up for 75 years believes that there was a conspiracy...that Oswald did do the first shot and may have missed...and then another shot came from a secret service agent from one of the tailing cars. It went off accidentally? Hitting the President? I don't know if this is what the movie is trying to say but it sounds hokey as hell. Maybe that's what it is meant to do...

Anyway, I'll be watching to see what the movie is really about. It comes on tonight, Sunday Nov 3, at 7:00PM PST.

Here's the bigger picture regarding the US Default kabuki theatre (just part of the usual neoliberal ploys to give state wealth to big business and finance at the expense of the people):

http://www.globalresearch.ca/economic-coup-detat-debt-and-deficit-as-sho...

There is zero difference between the majority of Democrats and Republicans. There are or were a few good people from both parties but they're a dying breed -- Dennis Kucinich screwed by his own party :(

Aliceinwonderland ~ Funny story! Sounds like "TrappedInATownFullOfIdiots" is actually "TrappedInAHouseFullOfMirrors." Poor guy. Everywhere he turns there is some idiot staring back at him. He probably doesn't have any windows either. Probably why he is such an expert in natural gas--it isn't just baloney that he is full of.

By the way, thanks for the support on Campaign Finance Reform. It seems like a lot of us already are on that boat. Lets keep that ship a' floating.

Kend ~ It looks like we finally agree about something--Single-Payer Health care for all. Thanks for thinking the problem through. I agree, that is going to have to be the final answer. Thanks for the input.

I couldn't agree more with Aliceinwonderland. This country has been ripped apart and I suspect by design of the "Divide and Conquer" concept of 1% thinkers. While everyone is up in arms over this, that, and the other... pointing fault fingers, and admittedly it's hard not to because we all have our opinions and beliefs. But in doing so, things are happening, that is not readily disclosed and in many cases only after the fact, when it's too late.

Americans regardless of political, or religious affiliations, gender, age,and income (levels that aren't millionaires or billionaires) need to come back to basics on what unites us all and we can ALL agree on.

None of us are happy with our government officials and even less their methods regardless of who, what, where.

We have all lost respect for the men/women who hold those governing seats to a point of distrust that is self evident in the final results of what they do, do.

Given their power to rule over the people of this country in a fashion of childish public rants, loose loop-hole blocking measuresand tactics, finger pointing, and refusal to work with one another. We can all agree no employer in this country or any other would tolerate retaining such a dysfunctional employee. If we were employers ourselves, would we hire this team for our business? Well technically we do employ them because we are the reason they are where they are. "I voted for the other guy" doesn't get you off the hook ether because what they say and what they do doesn't appear to have anything to do with each other anymore... once they get into office, the office agendas seem to take on another life of it's own.

And finally, we can all agree...We share the same sense of feeling that the fate of the common man today, the plight of our children and those who come after, the land we live and depend on stands in dire jeopardy times. The energy force that sorrounds us in present time, is not eminating a postive force but a sense that more and more is being taken away and only the super rich and aristrocrats have rights as ours grows weaker every day.

Where once we all had differences of opinion and we always will... but what's absent today that wasn't before....Was we also had possabilities/aspirations and a means to move toward them. We had hope and dreams that weren't unrealistic or unatainable. Today, what we all sense and what succesfully divides us is the sense we're all sitting on the Titanic and the only hope available is to survive by whatever means.

Agreeing we all have a sense of these things and our differences are not as much what seperates us as our fear and anger as to what's to come. We should feel compassion for one another because we're not the problem. Our Government and it's handling and mishandling, misappropriating and ties are the problem. The money is there to accomplish all these things that can make it a healthier more prosperous America but not enough to fill the fat pockets of the 1% nor the war mongers that profit from it.

And Campaign finance reform is logically #1. Followed by a united front to demand a change in our trade agreements and removing tax breaks from the wealthiest. If people are back working, and EVERYONE is paying their fair share of taxes ...there won't be any need for "entitlements" to be an issue of discussion to address.

When it comes to our own people. the government was formed to protect those in this country and see to it's welfare. That is it's first obligation to which our leaders I think we're united in agreement...Get a Fail.

Much more crowded countries than even the United States have exemplary national health care systems so you can quit that trick too Kend.

And correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the War of 1812 an attack upon us by the Brittish, whose colony Canada still was, in attempt to regain control of the United States? I n that sense who won and who lost?

You're right Kend, we should be more like Canada. Canada's welfare benefits are even more generous than ours. You are of the European style welfare statism which is much more vigorous and robust than ours and is tinged with willfull socialism making Canada more a welfare state and more a workers' state than the U.S..

One of the great sense makings in Canada's system is its definition of poverty. In the U.S. the policy makers subscribe to a definition of poverty as "absolute poverty". That is, poverty is defined in terms that would be poverty anywhere in any period of history and purely in a very limited application - and thus, limited understanding - of the term. In the U.S. you are poor if your income makes you unable to procure basic necessities. You are not poor until you can't afford toothpaste.

In Europe poverty is defined as "relative poverty", i.e., you are poor if you are "relatively" poor, poor in relation to others in society. That is a very useful definition because people who are relatively poor - or, poor for their society but not as absolutely poor as the starving in Botswana - experience "social exclusion". They are not able to fully participate in society and - I would emphatically add - they are isolated, marginalized and unjustly denied the power to meaningfully participate in the decision making of society resulting in a less demnocratic, more oligarchic situation (I am a firm believer that socialism is an essential componant of any genuine democracy). Thus the "theatre allowance" to Germany's unemployed, and so forth.

Food stamps are about 2% of the U.S. budget. They and other welfare programs are an effecting of justice not an injudiciously wasteful charity. They are a just compensation for the undercompensation of American workers. Most welfare recipients are, in fact employed or children of employed people and a just compensation for business cycles that cause periods of widesprerad unemployment.

In this way - as an astute fellow poster on this site noted - they are a subsidy to unscrupulous business enabling undercompensation (e.g., Walmart in California giving seminars to its employees on how to get on food stamps) and business always hired PR campaigns and political campaigns against welfare because welfare benefits compete with wages and pressure them to pay a living wage.

If you want to reduce the debt cut the militeary budget. Stop the hither unfunded wars (Afghanistan) stop the wasteful spending on a military larger than all others combined whose opnly purpose is to enrich Pentegon cronies.

Sorry about the long windedness but you know how it is. Once you start you can't stop.

DAnneMarc -- You really need to read Thom's book "Ultimate Sacrifice", I didn't, but you should. I think Thom says something like JFK used the mafia to assist in the "Bay of Pigs". This led to the mafia eliminating JFK. That book is like 850 pgs.