> i agree something must be done. know anyone, or group, mobilizing the
> grass roots approach you're alluding to, in the coming years or
> whenever?
I haven't done any research yet on the groups presently active, though I know there are a number of them. Health care professionals in particular seem to be getting more involved, which makes sense, because no one knows how bad the situation is better than them.
What I'm hoping and expecting is that this issue will heat up considerably in the next few years. It might even come to play the role that key issues like the war and civil rights did in the '60s. The trouble is that it's a rather complex subject, compared with those; big popular movements generally arise when you have a simple, morally compelling message, like "war is not healthy for children and other living things," or "treating people badly because of their skin color is wrong." What the health care issue needs is some way of connecting the myriad flaws in the existing system, which people experience day to day, with the idea of the society running the system in a democratic way for the people's benefit, not that of the insurance companies and pharmaceutical giants.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt