Is Nausea a pre-existing Condition?
I have just one request from American politicians, including President Obama. I don't ever want to hear you guys again utter the famous phrase used so often in speeches from both sides of the aisle. "America is the greatest country in the world..." It's a common boast, so much an accepted part of our political discourse that no one ever seems to challenge it. As the debate over health care reform enters the home stretch, however, with a senate bill that would appear to strip away most of the key provisions advocated by progressives, the nation's presumed lofty status has, to say the least, been severely diminished in the eyes of many.
The frustrated attempts by the United States to reform the country's health care system is a sad tale of a deformed democracy with a political leadership that is out of touch with human needs, disdainful of the electorate, brazenly exhibiting little regard for the well-being of its own citizens. Too harsh an indictment you say? The truth couldn't be more transparent; beyond the corporate interests that line the pockets of those who call themselves our representatives, the American ideal is a benign illusion. After witnessing the way the nation's leaders have made the citizens of this country grovel and beg for what is considered a fundamental right in most of the rest of the world, it is hard not to come away with a feeling of profound disgust.
Many have said that the battle over health care reform represents a pivotal point in American history. How will historians view what will certainly be the key policy debate during the Obama administration? Perhaps they will state what now seems the obvious: that in the beginning of the 21st century, no matter how America appeared to change on the surface, when the chips were down it just couldn't manage the will to pull itself out of the clutches of corporate power.
I have just one request from American politicians, including President Obama. I don't ever want to hear you guys again utter the famous phrase used so often in speeches from both sides of the aisle. "America is the greatest country in the world..." It's a common boast, so much an accepted part of our political discourse that no one ever seems to challenge it. As the debate over health care reform enters the home stretch, however, with a senate bill that would appear to strip away most of the key provisions advocated by progressives, the nation's presumed lofty status has, to say the least, been severely diminished in the eyes of many.
The frustrated attempts by the United States to reform the country's health care system is a sad tale of a deformed democracy with a political leadership that is out of touch with human needs, disdainful of the electorate, brazenly exhibiting little regard for the well-being of its own citizens. Too harsh an indictment you say? The truth couldn't be more transparent; beyond the corporate interests that line the pockets of those who call themselves our representatives, the American ideal is a benign illusion. After witnessing the way the nation's leaders have made the citizens of this country grovel and beg for what is considered a fundamental right in most of the rest of the world, it is hard not to come away with a feeling of profound disgust.
Many have said that the battle over health care reform represents a pivotal point in American history. How will historians view what will certainly be the key policy debate during the Obama administration? Perhaps they will state what now seems the obvious: that in the beginning of the 21st century, no matter how America appeared to change on the surface, when the chips were down it just couldn't manage the will to pull itself out of the clutches of corporate power.
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