Choice is the tag most often misused in the current health reform debacle. Aside from first year come-on gimmicks, all insurance companies are pinned to the same actuaries and eventuate delusion into collusion. The absolute minimal essentials are no more precondition clauses, no ands, ifs and buts to legitimate care, yes to county mandated free walk in clinics for all uninsured, taking the place of Medicaid , every infant hence born is given a government healthcare certificate, and price control...

It's true that no longer should bankers lend with abandon and that too many small businesses have no need to expand and hire. So why doesn't the government reverse the tarp and have these fat cats lend to contractors of infrastructure to speed up the role of investments where it will do the most good? It always rankles me when I see the likes of Coca Cola and McDonalds heralded as great investments as though we really needed them--investors have no imagination, especially investment bankers, exc...

The Senate must be purged by the electorate; it cannot exist as is if it is to be "the greatest deliberative body in the world." The likes of Dorgan, Lieberman, Snowe, Dodd, Nelson of Nebraska, and many others are petty and look to the money peddlers for their orders. Senate should no longer be permitted to have contact with the rotting corporate body of lobbyists.

Stockholders are apathetic in permitting huge salaries, bonuses and perks to company executives. The only way to combat these nonsensical obscenities is for the government to tax the wealthy at the old FDR, Truman, Eisenhower 90+% rate coupled with tax credits for worthy domestic investments.

How can we be sure that bankruptcy from medical expenses is outlawed? Why isn't Cobra built into unemployment insurance? Why can't healthcare be a given, rather than a purchased commodity? Employer based insurance is obsolete, why not begin a phase out by incorporating company plans into Medicare and keeping the insurance company as a supplement? I have little faith the hodge-podge being developed or rather watered down by the Senate stands a chance to be effective; especially for those on the p...

"The legislators may just discover that the bank money is toxic, and standing with the banks perilous to their political careers." This quote is wishful, naive perception. Since the birth of this nation it is the Senate that has been too big in egoism to fail! By its very nature--despite the myth of profiles in courage--it is 99% flunkeys to Wall Street even though dissenters always claim conscience driven motives to hide the backdoor of oligarchy.

Economist bean-counter Robert Samuelson is panicky over healthcare for millions more running up the national debt.[The uninsured] "already receive substantial medical care." Apparenly it is not worth putting in jeopardy other enterprises such as the war machine, outsourcing and Wall Street bonuses.  

According to Robert Reich "both sides of the Pacific is that both America and China are capable of producing far more than their own consumers are capable of buying." Only true, particularly in this country that is under an industrial famine and no longer capable of real productivity and wages. China, would have its hands full keeping up with domestic demand if it ever developed a substantial social safety net and nearly a billion middle class population.

Grayson is old McCarthyism in reverse. True, the republican party deserves a kick in the ass for its obnoxious obstruction tactics, yet Democrats should not fall to their level. If Republicans can't see the enormous compromise the Democrats have made in not demanding single payer healthcare, then an up or down vote on tbe public option should be done immediately; nor should congress delay an effective date but activate the healthcare bill by January.

Finance committee on healthcare in introducing its infinite amendments to amendments is indicative of lawmakers sophistry and insincerity, reducing the Senate to brazen dysfunction and embarrassment. Republican members clearly favor protecting the rates and profits of the health industry under the aegis of the free market, while the Democrats contort reform with double talk by insisting on “change” that barely changes anything because it is constrained by fitting change into a dogge...

What’s wrong with a change of heart? For seven years Bush never had a heart in Afghanistan, but when Obama "dithers" even though he had committed forces there as one of his first acts in office, now he’s hesitant over committing more. Bravo. However. It’s wrong to keep troops already there in suspension. I say, just get the hell out of there, including Iraq. Nor is there any point—in order to win—in bombing them back to the Stone Age because Afghans have never left....

You don’t hear much today about the nanny state even though it is displayed in the full dress of overwhelming force. Criticism of nanny is ordinarily directed toward the welfare mother, pubic housing, government employees, social security and Medicaid, Medicare, even national emergency handouts, which has now become financial behemoths as too big to fail, when in faith we are told, the free market is capable of taking care of itself. Much like insurance companies notorious for exorbitant c...

First of all, I don’t want to hear anymore about the poor sacrificing US taxpayer shelling out hard earned money for bailouts—it’s the hard working Chinese tax payer who’s doing the bailing out. Sure, our great grandchildren will eventually get the bill in the mail, but by that time it will be inconsequential inasmuch as China shall have claimed ownership of the good old USA. As for Geithner it’s too soon to judge—in light of current upbeat stockmarket r...

I thought Obama campaigned against the top-down theory of governance and economics? Unfortunately that's how our universe works--and ultimately black holes rule. Since the beginning of our time, the social contract is pocked with black holes--politicians and corporate moguls suck the life out of us. It may be the way of darwinian cosmology and the matrix of pac-man society, but damn it, we shouldn't take it anymore! No social structure should have to be at the mercy of these thugs on Wall Street...

The most important action the government can take to ease the economic crisis is to bypass the middle-fiddle manipulators of Wall Street and deal with the thousands of solvent local and regional banks that still exercise sound lending and investment practices. Moreover, there are countless ways to put people to work without having to wait for new technology such as wind turbine grids and high speed rails. Decaying malls and housing are in need of immediate clean up and repair. Many malls in decl...