Keepin the guberment out of Medicare

Joshua Holland suspects that:

Many observing these [healthcare] debates from abroad have probably concluded that we, as a nation, have finally gone completely mad. And it's hard to argue otherwise.

How sane could be a polity that sits by with relative complacence when its leaders launch devastating and groundless invasions of foreign lands but approach a full-on rebellion when those leaders make some modest moves to deliver decent health care at a price people can afford?

And how could these people be so divorced from the dynamics of their own health care that they don't appear to understand that the Medicare they value so highly is very much a government-run health care program?

I would bet that observers of the United States suspected Uncle Sam of political madness since the moment when Republican conservatives generated another Constitutional crisis — that is, when they sought to impeach Bill Clinton for his boorish sexual practices. And, if that sorry episode failed to convince them, surely the 2000 election debacle finished the job.

It is always unwise to underestimate the effectiveness envy and vindictiveness, vanity and greed, hatred and paranoia have in human affairs.