Throughout my adult life, insurance companies have been reviled...until now. Now, conservatives vigorously defend them and insist that we've got the best system on earth. Uh...really? When did that happen? We've got the best medical professionals and technology, but a lousy system.

I'm terribly amused at how people are suddenly defending insurance companies, as tho they only have our best interests at heart. I've seen them regularly screw our pastors and on a whim discontinue our church plans (or suddenly raise rates ridiculously high, forcing us to look elsewhere). But I guess to conservatives, "the enemy of my enemy--Obama--is my friend." So now, the insurance companies are our BFFs.

Egypt, evidently, is pretty grand after all. Let's just stay here, yoked to our noble insurance companies, while they arbitrarily deny claims, cancel policies, raise deductibles, search for pre-existing conditions, and bury doctors and patients in paperwork. (I'm sure doctors just LOVE dealing with insurance companies.)

Meanwhile, people in progressive countries leave the doctor's office and never see a bill. No paperwork, no hassles. (Yeah, Canada has a bad system in many ways, but what Obama is proposing is not based on their system.) Wouldn't it be nice to be freed from the tyranny of insurance companies? To not have to hassle with them? Is America, the greatest country on earth, unable to figure out a good system for making that happen?

I still believe in America's greatness, and that we can figure this out, for the benefit of our citizens.