>>This is not a Republican or Democratic thing, it is a Government thing.

Well, see, no. These are precisely political failures, not governmental ones. The formulas for Social Security are not set by mid-level admins, but called for in law. A basic re-write of Medicare would require a lot of legislation to authorize and fund. The stimulus package was utterly political in concept through execution. The bureaucracy has nothing to do with these issues.

Now if you were saying you blame politics in general rather than either individual party I'm totally with you. Playing at politics has replaced working on governing at many levels and it's killing us. Individual legislators are in a bad place given the need for fundraising for re-election, dealing with big expectations for access for huge money from PACs, unions, corps and random rich people, balancing home district needs with party demands and the fact that our lack of will in the past has let a lot of issues get way out of hand.

At some point we need to stop worrying about the next election and deal with some serious problems, but neither party has the courage for that.

Single male, are you? Probably fairly young? Healthy enough, I bet.

Have a family, where there are annual visits for the wife and unbelievable numbers of well-child visits for young children. I believe a newborn in MN is expected to have visits at 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 15, 18 and 24 months with between one and four shots per visit. Want a hint how much a visit costs? Somewhere betwee $200-$600, depending on what shots are called for. My company's insurance only covers $700 of well patient visit benefits a year so we deferred a lot of shots on our youngest until after 1/1/09. That's after approximately $25000 of total bills for the birth.

There's a time in life where people can stoutly sock away their money and claim that insurance is a scam, but there's a time in most lives when that's just foolish. It comes a lot sooner than you think, so don't be too big an ass is your fun, cheap youth lest you find yourself looking foolish at 30.