The rich still run the US

[CHIMO]

Corruption takes many forms in different countries and locations. Here in the United States it may not be as common to pay off a judge or a customs official as it is in most low- and middle-income countries, but we do have quite a bit of legalised bribery, especially in the form of electoral campaign contributions. The most obvious current case is that of healthcare reform, where the powerful insurance, pharmaceutical and other lobbies are in the process of vetoing some of the most important parts of the healthcare reform that most Americans want and need.

For example, the vast majority of Americans favour a public option – insurance offered by the government, as we have for senior citizens in the Medicare programme – yet these powerful interests are blocking it in the Senate. This is despite the modest nature of the reform, which would not provide free or universal insurance, but rather an additional option that employers and individuals could buy into, with some subsidies for those who could not afford it. The insurance companies don't want competition, and the pharmaceutical corporations don't want another potentially large buyer that could bargain against their own monopoly power over the prices of patented drugs.

The United States is a rich country, so it seems obvious that our forms of corruption are preferable to those that plague developing countries. And they are, in the sense that it that it is always better to be a rich country and have rich country problems than to be a poor or middle-income country. But if we look at the US from the point of view of its potential – and I don't mean utopian dreams but merely what is quite feasible and practical in the immediate or near future – it seems that we have a very limited form of democracy.

One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and nearly two years into our worst recession since the Great Depression, we have almost nothing to show in the way of reforms that could prevent a recurrence. The financial sector is probably more concentrated than it was before the crisis, and financial firms are still gambling with taxpayer guarantees, and even subsidies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/17/healthcare-us-economy-reform

[MichiganVote]

1. Its a scary world...health care, wars, taxes,...all icebergs. Like living on the ghost ship Titanic.

[lumpy]

2. Disheartening. Nothing will change until we elect people to

pilot this country who are not beholden to the capitalist powers that be. Nothing will change until the 'common' people educate themselves as to the reality of the powers that control our very lives. Our lives cannot continue to be influenced by the uneducated, ignorant, bigoted sheep who appear to be a growing voice in the US.