>>Name me one politician that is focused on the common good - and don't say Obama because nothing could be further from the truth.

The point has been made often enough that O has no business experience. Yet he is pushing through payroll tax changes that benefit small business and it was O who kicked off the federal red-tape cutting exercise coming to fruition at the moment that is also a relief for small business. You may abhor O's politics but surely it is inescapable that this was not done to benefit himself or nanny bureaucracy that some insist he is in love with.

>>I believe that self-reliance and freedom are best for the people.

I believe that not having car crashes is best for the people. But I still want decent trauma care in my town. As my grandpa used to say: if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Sadly our preferences are not enough to get every beggar off the streets and onto their own horse.

>>The nanny state, making people dependent on the government from womb to tomb is not in their best interest.

But that's just another loaded slogan. If you really wanted to debate the facts and figures, you might have different concerns. I'll give you one now: in healthcare the US is falling behind the wealthy European nations who offer nanny heathcare. It's somewhat hidden because of centers of excellence in the US, but unless the center of excellence is your local facility, its presence on the other side of the country doesn't give you better care. This has nothing to do with healthcare personnel or managers who remain of extremely high standard in the US, it's to do with arrival of funds and new technologies at the coal face. The question now is whether it's more productive to dispassionately compare cost and quality of care of various models or whether it's better to just keep on sloganeering until insurance companies making like bandits and the Medicare deficit takes the whole edifice down. IMHO the Medicare deficit is now *unmanageable* unless US taxpayers and recipients get together ASAP to decide how they will share the pain fairly amongst themselves. Fat chance, you say? Well then.