[Elspode]

As I've gotten older, I find myself drawn more and more into the political scene. I don't tend to participate in the debates here because I am most decidedly not a partyline kind of guy. I'm a social liberal and pretty much a fiscal conservative. There's an inherent clash in those two philosophies these days as one side is pretty much "shove the sick and old out into the snow and let 'em die" mentality, and the other is "cradle to grave care, baby". I happen to think that we can be fiscally responsible while still taking care of our infirm and elderly in a decent manner. I believe the reason we don't is that people are seen as commodities off of which to make profit, and nothing more. I believe that hard core Capitalism is responsible for that, and that the only way to soften and humanize our world is to remove some of the profit incentive from keeping people healthy.

Spiraling medical and drug costs are disproportionate to what you are buying. Essentially, we're being told, "How much would you spend to stay alive?" The answer, these days, is, "How much do you have?"

That's wrong.