This is generally how I feel about most of these conversations. At the same time, I am dismayed that folks can't seem to communicate because they are so interested in talking past each other and being right. If folks invested half the energy into finding viable solutions that they invest in partisan grandstanding, we would have solutions to this and other problems already.

Are you sure you aren't my sister...she just said that very thing not but an hr ago....HA!!!

funny part is...she is your soror.

In fairness to the heckler, I think some of the numbers cited to get to the really big number of uninsured include illegal immigrants. If you check out some of the right-y blogs, I think you can find links that reflect some really recent subtractions to remove illegal immigrants from the pool of people being discussed.

How to handle this part of the health care equation is a pretty contentious area. There's always the tension being doing what appears to be the right thing vs any kind of sustainability. Free world class health care regardless of citizenship is likely to be a pretty big draw. What seriously ill person wouldn't come here for care?

If other publicly paid for health care systems are any evidence of the sort of care...probably none.

I guess if the Democrats want to push this better, they should tell the Republicans that the health care will be so terribly bad that immigrants won't want to come here. It might work. Especially since it will be true.

Yeah, but I imagine any negative effects in the quality of care are going to be gradual. I don't expect to go third world in one generation, no matter how bad health care reform turns out.

Crap, that's something new to worry about.

The quality of the doctors, medicine, etc probably will not go down any time soon.

But the accessibility to that quality, will.

Huh? take me though this.

ETA: It sounds like you expect a vast increase in the number of people seeking treatment that will remain high quality. I'm betting it won't go down like that.

It won't.

But I guess what I would be saying is that for now, the quality of the doctors...as in their education and aptitude for medical knowledge will stay up. Not necessarily the quality of the care they provide.

Granted, I have a bone to pick with national healthcare. A good German friend of mine was not given treatment because of the advanced stages of his cancer. He was denied care even though he had been paying into the system for quite a long time. He passed away. My German roommate broke his arm while I was there. It didn't get fixed while I was there. I left for the United States and emailed him probably a month after I had left. They finally had got to him, but they had to re-break his bone to reset it. Sounds like something I envy.

Did you know that what you guys spend on the war on drugs could easily financed universal health care?

Well, yeah, until everyone addicted to drugs needs treatment. ;)

Pelosi looks like swords of fire are about to pop out of her eyeballs! :)

I was just thinking that the opening of SNL this weekend should be good!

And really, talking about our President being a babe and how fly his haircut is? Do you also wear his face on your tshirt and tennis shoes/sneakers?

And I thought Southerners were supposed to be classy? *ducks* lol

if we can laugh at how bush mispronounced words, then yes, we can talk about him looking good.

Yes, and that works on both sides. That's why I'm a bit dismayed at the "take it or leave it" message that the President seems to be communicating lately. Both sides are making concessions...Obama doesn't need to borrow the "you're with us or against us" rhetoric from the Bush presidency.

I know. Read my post. It was not partisan.

I was reading this book by Katherine McKittrick a while ago and there was a passage that was actually liberating for me in an odd sort of way. McKittrick suggests that the intent has never been and will never be to remedy these problems (i. e. hunger, poverty, health care reform etc... and the conditions that produce them). The inherent desire of those in power is to constantly reproduce the conditions that keep them in power and mirror back to them their notions of their own status and power, which is why these problems persist even in light of the general advancement that we, as a global society, continue to make. (McKittrick said it so much more eloquently, but the book is at home and I am not.) Anywho, I was persuaded and her argument makes our current circumstances easier to understand.

When I write posts like this, I know it is time to get back to the book project.