I don't think I have to distinguish between a good doctor who adequately serves the Hippocratic oath and those who don't--doctors who flippantly or glibly diagnose our loved ones for the purpose of not bettering the patient's health but of serving the insurance companies and HMO's.

And are you arguing that such health services are adequately available and distributed in this country? If so, then why the need for an overhaul? Which is it?

That the system is broken is a given, you wouldn't be arguing for reform if it weren't. That the daunting financial task of establishing nationalized health care for 100% of the American populus is comparable to that of paving the roads in Afghanistan or putting a man on Mars has been noted extensively, and I don't have to track down a source on such a standardly acknowledged claim.

Nor is it necessary to substantiate (our) claim that the system is broken, that poor people go without pills, chemotherapy, wheelchairs, just the same as I don't have to cite sources to prove someone's house is burning down - where there's smoke, there is fire. No amount of fallacious appeals to authority can discount that.

Question is: what are we going to do about it, and is it too late for anything to be done? Mr. Obama seems to have backed off his initial proposal so what's next?