Actually, Data General had a line of card punch and reader machines (I think they were OEM'ed, though) in the late 70s. I know because I was DG Field Engineer and had to work on those during election cycles. That's why I knew what "hanging-chad" was very early in the 2000 election fru-fru.

Just proof of Abraham Lincoln's maxim: Any man can handle adversity pretty well, but to really test a man's character give him power.

Well, from my own anecdotal research I find that most of MSNBC's airtime is filled with prison lockup shows.

I do. The thing that you're ignoring is this: the combination of my insurance premiums through work; my employer's premiums to the same insurers; medicare; medicaid; VA and a few others dwarfs - on a per-capita basis - what anyone else in the world pays for coverage. And that coverage, in case you haven't noticed, is ridiculously complex with tremendous gaps and inefficiencies that make the whole experience much, much worse than any dealings with the IRS - and I've had a few. In each case I found the IRS to be very helpful and pleasant to deal with. As opposed to, say, AT&T...

Excuse me? That whole post made no sense whatsoever! How did you get health care without insurance or a very large wallet? And don't hand me that crap about ER coverage being "free". It's not! Once you leave the hospital, you're going to have to make a detour through the business office where you'll get a full walletectomy before you can leave, and if you don't have cash, you'll have the collection agency knocking at your door.

You are conflating 2 separate things: improvements in diagnostics and treatment, and access to those things. Plenty of acute care (and non-acute) treatments and tests such as CAT scans, etc have improved dramatically over the last few years, so what's your point again? Oh! Right! If the government is involved in making access to these things, it's Bad(TM). Obviously, the OP pointed out that world-wide experience shows that single-payer, universal coverage is far more efficient and - oh, yeah - compassionate than our layers upon layers of BS insurance companies and their "Utilization Review Committees", aka "Death Panels".

Since you're already modded to +5 I won't bother, but - Kudos for not being one of the mindless cumwads who automatically reject anything that anyone else says just because they are associated with ${political party or person's name who we've been conditioned to hate by propagandists}. Without critical thinking, there is no thinking possible at all.

To me, the whole concept of the former "personnel" department becoming "human resources" is a reflection of the mindset that real people with real desires to advance, and real desires to keep up with technical changes and advances, and real desires to feel like we're really contributing to the success of our company are, well, passe. In that mindset, we're all just "resources" that can fit onto a spreadsheet or HR template. A true story from my days at Dialogic - a company that made telecom gear. After finally getting management buy-in to release a Linux version, I was in a meeting with engineering management and they started wondering about getting the "resources" to do the driver and porting work. I suggested looking at working to get some input from some experienced open-source driver maintainers on a contract basis to get some of our existing Solaris versions ported. They laughed and said "Oh, we can't do that! We'll just pull some resources from our Windows team and they'll be fine." Ha! For some reason, they just couldn't grasp the concept that there was experience, knowledge and - ultimately - passion for what you are doing that translates into real achievement.

Nice blanket statement totally devoid of rationality or perspective....

Besides which, what gives the Catholics the right to opt out of things they don't like? People who don't support war are "forced to pay" for it anyway. People who don't like corporate welfare are "forced to pay" for it. People who don't like government spying are "forced to pay" for it. etc. Hiding behind your religion like it's more sacred than the Constitution is what makes me, an atheist, arguably a Better American(TM) than you, so get off my lawn!

Kind of like the Walton family - yeah, they really worked their asses off to get the Walmart fortune.....Uh-huh.

I call 100% organic, dolphin-free bullshit! First, the estate taxes have a limit of, like, $5 million before they kick in so you're rant about the "middle" is just wrong/a lie. Take your pick.

"You must be new here." Check my uid, Cohiba. I just have a higher opinion of the collective wisdom here, despite the outliers. :-)

Look, there are always going to be abuses of ANY system, but anything that helps raise the bar of accountability is inherently a Good Thing(TM) so please stop the whining about how it's not totally perfect.

I'd say that you're buying into the whole "governments are bad, mkay..." syndrome that affects a large swath of the population these days. In my experience, I've had great government work experiences and ultra-crappy private sector experiences and vice-versa. Perhaps the reason that government project failures get more attention is a combination of a very active propaganda machine always on the lookout for any government failure so that they can hype it mercilessly and that - overall - government projects tend to be larger. Just a thought....