First, I wouldn't be so bold as to say that paying for everything is THE problem with health insurance. If you break down the costs, there are several factors that make us more expensive than other countries. First is the percentage going to doctors is much higher than in other countries - our physicians are paid very well. Partly this is due to unnecessary procedures, part of it is high malpractice insurance passed on, and part is just high fees. If you cut out the unnecessary procedures you will start eliminating this cost.

The next problem is the administrative cost of the private health insurers. They are not more efficient than the government (Medicare costs 1/5-1/3 the amount to run as private insurers). Why is this? The private insurers are trying to maximize profit, not minimize cost. They've created a behemoth of red tape and paperwork designed to deny more claims and make up for the cost of the system with more denied claims. It works for their purpose, but it is driving our costs through the roof. The government can be very efficient and Medicare is a good example. The thought that the government is always inefficient is a fallacy.

The problem with health care is that it is different from other insurance. You don't need a car, vacation, computer, etc. to survive, but you sure need your body. Hospitals are required to help anyone, regardless of ability to pay. In some way or another they are going to have to cover the costs for those people. They can either charge everyone else more at the point of service or everyone can pay more to the government in taxes to subsidize them. Either way, we all end up paying for it. The problem for low income people is that they really don't make enough to afford health care. So do you want to just let them die? That won't happen, and if we want to fix the problem for good we will need to provide coverage for those that cannot afford it. In the end, paying the hospital for treating these people will uncover the real costs so they can be controlled better than burying them in the treatment of the rest of us will.

There are many systems in the western world that are not socialized - take Switzerland for example. Private insurers provide coverage and everyone is required to buy insurance, the poor are subsidized. The insurers cannot profit from basic insurance, but must provide basic insurance in order to have the right to provide supplemental insurance (I think ~30% have this). The incentives in the system are set up to let the capitalist motive push for efficiency since they cannot profit from the basic care. Watch the Frontline documentary "Sick Around the World" to get a better idea of how other countries operate and how our system can transform into one of them. The socialized systems are too far from what we have now and the Swiss system would be a much better fit for our political climate.

Ah, but the Farads are in parallel, which means they add!

Nearly all of the non-news shows (WWDTM, APHC, etc.) are liberal, but NPR works very hard to report the news plainly and unbiased. Listen to Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Marketplace. These shows represent some of the most unbiased reporting outside of the BBC. The human interest stories are more likely to appeal to liberals since they usually have to do with people in tough situations, but they report both sides and try to do it fairly.

I think that one reason NPR doesn't have any conservative shows is that the conservative commentators seem to generally want to outrage their audience. Also, I don't think they could do the "NPR voice." I do hope that an intellectual conservative voice does come to NPR to provide balance, but it will probably be a while until this happens.

I live in Jacksonville, FL and learned a lot about the deep-harbored hate that some here have. A friend (white woman) was waving a sign from a sidewalk yesterday with 2 other Obama supporters (a black woman and another white woman). More than once, cars yelled the n-word at them. Others flipped them off and yelled other obscenities. Now I don't know if they were yelling about Obama (most likely) or about the black woman in the group, but either way it is deeply disturbing. I noticed that my neighbor's Obama sign was missing, then noticed that there were not any in our area of town. My friend told me that she saw at least three instances of white males in pickup trucks removing Obama signs or putting McCain signs directly in front or behind them.
Jacksonville is at the edge of the south, but it still has some remnants from the south of old. Areas of town are mostly not integrated and when they start to become so, they usually just swap races. The predominantly white area that declined started getting more black residents and then the "white flight" began. One largely black area started undergoing "gentrification" and many blacks are leaving.
We have a long way to go yet in the south.