"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world."

If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet, I'd never come to work. I'd scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming.

...

Yet in this infinite realm of truth-telling, many want to hide. Who are these people prepared to tell you what they think, but not who they are? What is the mentality that lets them get in our face while wearing a mask? Shredding somebody's character before the entire world and not being held accountable seems like the perfect sting.

you're right - offering the co-op as the model to compete with the private sector is nothing but a diversion. The history of co-ops in this country is very clear that unless you can get a large market share, you cannot drive down the costs, and most co-ops fail for that reason. Group Health is unusual in the sense that it still exists since it's original creation in 1947

As the health care debate focuses on whether cost cuts are looming in Medicare coverage, Representative Henry A. Waxman is on a crusade to save Medicare billions of dollars -- in a way that he says would end up helping the elderly.

That is because the money would come from the drug industry, which is why Mr. Waxman may have a fight on his hands.

Drug makers contend they have already worked out a 10-year, $80 billion cost-savings deal with the White House and crucial Senate gatekeepers on the trillion-dollar health care overhaul. The industry says that trying to add Mr. Waxman's provision could scuttle that agreement.

"You not only break the deal, but you break the bank for us," said Billy Tauzin, chief executive of the drug industry's trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA.

The lion lays dying.  And all the animals surround him, mocking and kicking him.

One of the animals says, "You can't do anything to us now, can you, lion?"

And with his last breath the lion says:

[Though Democrats still hold a strong majority in the Senate, the party's moderates joined the GOP minority to push the Republican House bills through; Obama signed them, in the name of bipartisanship.]