You are kidding, right? It wasn't the Democrats who ran us into debt after Pres. Clinton left us with budget surpluses. It wasn't Democrats who started two wars at once without ever making any plans to pay for them. It wasn't the Democrats that created and passed a big wasteful Medicare prescription drugs program where the government pays full price and can't negotiate. The biggest messes we are facing were caused by a Republican-controlled Congress and a Republican President. You talk about Dems doing damage but give no real examples except for welfare and didn't President Clinton sign welfare reform into law? If you distrust government, you are distrusting all of us because here it is government by, of, and for the people (that's us). There's nothing inherently wrong with government, even big government. That's a myth that Republicans have been pushing for years, but it's not a fact. The fact is that bad government is bad government, whatever the size. The problem is corruption and dishonesty and we hit a high under the Republicans when the turned the war profiteers loose on the Treasury and turned the banks loose to plunder and pillage and then the Bush Administration and his Republican Treasury Secretary gave billions of dollars in taxpayer money to Goldman Sachs and Citi and others. That' was all the Republicans doing - and it doesn't do any good to lie about it, we're not taken in by lies and myths. The data is in and the problem isn't the government and it isn't the Democrats. The problem is the Republicans deregulating everything so the corporations can plunder and pillage until we're all living in the streets but the top 1%. Pfui.

Mr. N H...

Im neither an expert on politics or on health care but this I do know...

The current health care system sucks and it sucks badly...Also, as long as we allow the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies to continue to do things as they have been...The situation will only become suckier...For us.

So...Lets all of us stop whining about obama being president and which party did what and lets all of us grow up and work together to reform health care so that we the people will no longer be screwed by they the big corporations...Ok ?

I agree with Thomas and Jen.

Jen makes a good point that Republicas love the idea of less government.  That is only to maintain the status quo, where the people who have been privileged for centuries stay that way at the cost of the people at the bottom (who don't really have a chance unless they are cherry picked by a mentor and guided).

Many (not all) Republicans don't care about healthcare because they haven't been affected by it. All the people who are debating health care and whether it's a right or not and wheter it will fund abortion or not bla bla bla bla are people who ultimately will not be affected negatively by healthcare reform.  These are the privileged few who have loud voices and also have the time to think and debate...while there are millions out there who are suffering while nothing gets done.  The people who are dying are the people who live check by check and have NO TIME to think and debate what is a right and what is not a right.  They only live in the present, and they know that right now they are dying and suffering.  Who are they going to turn to?  The greedy insurance companies who are taking a bet on them to make a buck?  Of course not, they are going to turn to the government.

The same people who have always been in power, always been privileged, these are the people who oppose the healthcare reform.  The ironic part is that even though they are privileged, they are extremely ignorant about how millions of their brothers and sisters in this country are at risk because of lack of healthcare.

America is supposed to be the land of the free, where everyone has an equal opportunity to make it big.  In practice, some Americans are more equal than others, and this is something that must be corrected.

But what do I know? I'm just a 3rd world citizen watching this, and wondering how the most powerful nation on Earth gets caught up in dumb debates of what is a right and what's not, when the evidence is there that if you have the power to keep people healthy, then why not?  Why not do it when you can see the suffering.

First of all, about big government, yes, history has tought us not only of the corruption inherent in all the power being in the hands of the policy makers, but also about the fact . . . fact, that someone somewhere will . . . in fact . . . use that power and seize more for himself/herself/themselves. It's why we have checks and balences in the first place, or do you think people are above that now? In which case you should be living in the former Soviet Union or China, maybe Cuba, after all, beaches are always nicer, even if Fidel won't let you have one, or maybe he will, if you become his special friend. 

     You see that's where all your Democrat, liberal thinking boils down to . . . it's somebody else's fault. It's not me, it's because the rich are selfish, that's why we have problems. It has nothing to do with me personally or us as a cohesive group working together, and the fact that we use up resources without contributing enough of our own.

     Jen all your examples are a matter of opinion. As a matter of fact you all are using opinion, and sure mine is opinion too, but go and see for yourself how easy it is for someone dependant on welfare to actually get out of it.

     And as for the rich thing, no, the Republicans don't support the rich, it's a matter of economic policy to help the overall economy by helping the powerhouses of the economy so that by their growth, they can expand their already millions of jobs to millions more jobs. And ultimately money flows everywhere because people have money to spend, why, because they earned it contributing to a business that will further grow and further increase supply of resources.

     But you liberals and Democrats think, oh no, we can't have the rich who earned their riches helping other rich people who also earned their riches and, by the way, provide millions of jobs and money flow throughout the economy. No, instead we must use up all our money controlling and regulating everything so that the rich are only the ones we think should be rich, but who's going to control that, oh, government will, oh, but that's too much like communism and that can't possibly happen to us, we're invunerable to corruption.

     And another thing, it's a far sight better to have a rich company that can go belly up if we stop buying from them to become corrupt than it is for the government who makes and controls policy here in the U.S. to go corrupt.

     And with the power the Democrats have been seeking, especially in the last couple decades or so, a corrupt government will be able to seize complete control over it's people, and that, my friend, is a recipe for complete disaster of all we know and hold dear.