Kend, try again. It does in fact cost you less for healthcare and population and resources have little, if anything, to do with it. Much more crowded countries than yours - or even ours - have very exemplary national healthcare systems and, in fact, the U.S. is the anomaly in the developed world in not having one. The European countries are SO crowded and have no more colonies, have a robust industrial base of manufacturing and powerful unions bringing very generous compensation to workers and a strong safety net, I might add.

The simple fact is that single payer taxing is the most efficient way to pay for it. Otherwise a very large cost of healthcare is administrative paperwork and C.E.O. salaries.

And I don't wanna hear any more obfuscation.

" In addition to the economic consequences, the debt-limit standoff produced record-low approval ratings for Republicans, so it's unclear why they would want to have the same fight over again."

Perhaps voters didn't have the energy to spam call their political representatives because they are still exhausted after dragging congress back from the brink of WWIII over Syria. Methinks voters need to harass their lawmakers more often but are not "fit" enough to do so. They are out of shape. Perhaps it is time to start retraining those civic action muscles :P

And another example of how corporations are knowingly committing crimes against US taxpayers..as well as deaf people...is when AT&T effectively partners with Nigerian scammers to bilk US taxpayers out of millions of dollars. See my last comment yesterday for links on this.

A Kentuckian groans in humiliation even as she sighs with relief...for now. As if having, as Steven Colbert so aptly put it, a human-turtle hybrid as my rep. in the Senate wasn’t embarrassing enough...nothing against turtles mind you, for the most part they are benevolent, but not so much in this case. Last night Mitch McSnapper, a tax and spend CONservative, (tax the poor to spend on the rich) squeezed 3 BILLION $$ for KY out of the pockets of the poor who have been without work and in some cases food since the shut down. (not to mention the countless lives that will be ruined by the draconian cuts which look as if they might become permanent). Supposedly, we need a dam, but for the life of me I can’t think where we’d need one THAT big.

For the moment, the multi-national corporate plutocraps have manipulated the strings of their T-puppets into concession. They chose to delay bringing about the world-wide financial chaos they so desperately want in order to maneuver into power in a final bid for global fascist control. This I’m guessing, is because the Supreme Court has not yet rendered voters completely impotent, another thing my illustrious cold-blooded reptilian Senator has groveled for within the last 10 days. Once SCROTUS waves that flag of surrender, they know the vote will be warm putty in their hands. The worse their ratings in the polls, the more intoxicated by the potential of absolute power they will become, cackling like drunken, evil witches around a cauldron.

We will not stop voting, we will never stop speaking out.

Very excellent remarks, DAnneMarc!

Hey "bobbler" - great post! Nothing I can argue with here. As you've explained so well, it is the working class, not the lazy 1%, who fuel this economy. But I hope you don't mind me pointing out that while Clinton did leave our budget in the black, he also ushered in NAAFTA, which helped unravel the economy again later on. Disempowering American workers by shipping their jobs overseas, forcing them to compete with slave labor in third world countries, has been disasterous to our economy in the long run. And as Thom likes to say, that is "very, very ugly". - Alice I.W.

DAnneMarc says "If the wealthy war profiteers aren't held accountable for the debt they incurred where is the discouragement to keep them from doing it again whenever it suits their corporate interests?" and "If the elite culprits reponsible for these wars don't intend to pay they are more than welcome to leave the country" and "Who needs their money if they don't intend to use it for the common good" and "They are worthless parasites" and "We, like Detroit, will recover a lot faster without a bunch of elitests spending money we don't have and dragging the country into debt..." - Excellent post! I could not have said it better, my friend. Too often, people ignore the real cause of this debt they keep harping on, buying into the lie that Social Security & Medicare are the problem. I get so tired of these ignoramus bastards who want to blame immigrants, "welfare moms" and the homeless for all our problems. These problems were caused by the rich & powerful, and that's where to direct the blame. That is who is running this country into the ground. If we want to take our country back, that's who we need to take it back from. Not Muslims, Mexicans, poor people, retirees or black folks... - Alice I.W.

Quote Kend:No Mark it doesn't. We are taxed far more than you. Keep in mind Canada has ten times the resources that the US has and one ten of the population. I honestly don't know how you are going to pay for it.

Kend ~ Really? Why don't you ask someone from another nation that has universal national health care? For your convenience here is a list:

Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brunei, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and The United Kingdom.

http://www.health.ny.gov/regulations/hcra/univ_hlth_care.htm

Strange that Mexico isn't in the list, I know they have it too. However, you get the point. If these countries can afford national healthcare, how can the "richest country in the world" not. Norway has had it since 1912, New Zealand since 1938. You should start asking them. For crying out loud Kend, Germany, Italy, and Japan are on the list. Didn't we just kick their butt 68 years ago? Germany started universal health care in 1941 and Japan in 1938. Apparently the expense of getting their butt kicked didn't stop them from financing health care for all their citizens. Lord knows they needed it too during the war. How can the US not afford national health care, when they can?

Obamacare (aka ACA) isn't the end all be all; but, it is good enough and expensive enough to eventually morph into Medicare for all. That is something that is a long time coming and something we can afford. Not to have national health care is something that we cannot afford.

We should have kept their keys while we had them out of the building!

No Mark it doesn't. We are taxed far more than you. Keep in mind Canada has ten times the resources that the US has and one ten of the population. I honestly don't know how you are going to pay for it.

Efficient about 24% of tax dollars go just to collect the tax dollars.

Republican/GOP/Tee boys = Party before country E V E R Y T I M E.