Can we define United States as a male or female dominate culture? If you evened the playing field between the two sexes by arming each gender with handguns, which would be at a disadvantage? Likely both genders will prove equal in protecting themselves.

One function of Government deals with evening social playing fields. Granting
equal voting power to women ensures our mothers; wives; daughters; sisters; and
lovers grips the same powerful handgun as any man. Unfortunately, that irrefutable
science called the census show our female population exceeds male by a full one
per cent. So why are we men asking to get shot by women assaulting their right
to politically control female reproduction? Do we really desire a shoot out
with our women?

Granted our American culture ranks one of the newest to leave those primitive caves where we banged women over the head, and dragged our sexy catch onto furs to have our way with them, but at least can Conservatives not agree that all humankind strive to evolve into civilized beings since we left those sexy caves? Are we Americans regressing? Do Conservatives boast the telltale sign of the classic, protruding forehead, hairy forearms, and grunt unintelligible remarks like, “Women must bare her rapist’s
child; even in doing so poses fatal risks, but at all cost the unborn human child possesses more rights than this citizen, and oh, by the way, let us ignore the Supreme Court already litigated law.”

Along with this absurd, egotistical, self righteous ranting, Conservatives spew issues that convey personal beliefs that on the surface sound great for business owners, already wealthy citizens, and ambitious entrepreneurs, but those are exactly that; they are personal beliefs without merit for the United States of America that houses 300 million citizens. America was not formed for those few. America was formed, fought to exist, and keeps fighting to free us all (no matter their creed; origin; gender; or race) from conquest, foreign or domestic—even going beyond our borders assisting other nationals to become freely democratic; striving for all humankind to evolve into higher
civilized beings.

Mysteriously Conservatives wish to battle fifty one per cent of Americans who possess equal power of the vote. The bigger mystery lies in how these Conservatives sold their toxic ideology to us enlightened American citizenry in past years, especially during the Bush family’s reign with such passionate ideology that produced the Butcher of Phoenix basically meaning, “Do it my way, or feel my wrath.” History show classic tyrants utilized the same scare tactics.

Conservative media probably benefited us citizens by flooding airwaves with outrageous nonsense; thereby forcing Liberal media like MSNBC, et al. to take existence. Liberal media, rather than attempt selling outrageous lies, paid close attention to facts (thank you MSNBC) generating trust with listeners. The single factor that has rescued our nation from falling into Conservative pit of destructive, self serving doom (again!) has been facts. These facts when presented to American citizens are self evident. Will we allow our beautiful mothers; wives; daughters; sisters; and lovers, ultimately our cradle of life, and our other half of the human equation to become a victim to Conservative, Neanderthalian control?

Excellent shows all week. Just love The Very Last Word segments. Good Job!!

Dear Lawrence and Team. Thank you for your excellent insight.

Our current dysfunctional system, as you say -- which was perverted by corporate lobbyists and [morally] corrupt politicians -- could have easily been avoided... Healthcare-reform should have been as simple as a one-sentence law:

"Every American has the right to enter Medicare, at any time, for any reason."
--That is what Ted Kennedy would have endorsed -- and what any moral American should be in favor of.

I would like to point out however, two slight errors in your report...
You incorrectly refer to the "Health Insurance Industry" The correct term is "Health Insurance Mafia"
and, "The Pharmaceutical Industry" -- again, the correct term is, "The American Drug Cartels"

Otherwise, Cheers, Best Wishes and Thank You... You're doing wonderfully and are loved by millions of grateful Americans. You would make a wonderful Senator, or President!

Bravo!

Well, this was never about the Constitution or people's rights. It was always just another way of attacking Obama as not being sufficiently religious to please the zealots.

The problem comes not when government requires employers to treat all employees fairly. It comes when religious organizations act as employers. When they do, they enter Caesar's realm.

And as for your rant on healthcare, you are entirely right. The "Affordable Care Act" was neither affordable nor care (although, I admit, it was an act). It doesn't provide affordable, universal healthcare. It was a failure as "affordable, universal" healthcare the moment they included the Republican mandates because instead of a solution to the healthcare crisis it became a mechanism for pushing people into for-profit healthcare. [For the record, it has its good points. Eliminating discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, putting more money into community clinics, those kinds of things, were a step forward.]

In order to get affordable, universal healthcare you would need to cut about $650 billion a year from current costs. We are paying over 17% of GDP, and affordable means 15% or less. This 15% is not an arbitrary number. The point where the healthcare sector soared over 15% is when this became a political issue. And it became a political issue because it is an economic issue. Those hundreds of billions of dollars come from other sectors of the economy--food, clothing, transportation, housing--places where people need the money. This extra money paid for healthcare is dragging down the economy and is a significant factor in what's keeping it from recovering as quickly as it should. (Bad tax law and bad trade law and overspending on the military are bigger components, but overspending on healthcare doesn't help.)

The U.S. simply cannot afford to spend over 15% on healthcare while our competitors in Europe are spending about 10% and our competitors in China and India are spending about 5%. (They get lousy healthcare, but they are still our competitors.)

And the only way to squeeze hundreds of billions out of the U.S. healthcare system is to end private healthcare altogether. It's only by getting rid of the profits, excessive executive pay, unnecessary marketing, and wasted administrative costs that we can get that kind of savings.

(I might note that the Republicans put forward their best plan to cut costs. They call it "tort reform". What this means is that in exchange for giving up your right to sue in case a provider screws up your healthcare they can save money. They thought they could save over $60 billion a year with this. That's right, in exchange for literally solving 1/10th of the problem they would have you give up your rights to correct faulty care. And, they even claim that Congress has the power to do this, which is in itself questionable, because we are talking about torts. Torts are law of equity, and I don't know where they think Congress gets the power to regulate that. But I digress.)

This is why Americans were angry with Obama when he stepped back and allowed legislation to go through without a public option. Because a public option is the minimum step necessary to move us in the direction of a public plan. It was clear at that point that he had not solved the problem. He just did a political deal that took away a bit of the pain. A palliative, if you will. [The White House apparently mistook this anger for anger about "losing" the battle. As if the American people somehow thought this was about winning or losing a political battle. We just know when we're getting railroaded into paying more for less, and we are justifiably enraged by it.]

The real solution to this problem is one of two options. (1) Publicly-funded healthcare, or (2) socialized medicine.

Of course, we know what would happen to anyone that proposed (2), but just for kicks, let's take a look at what that would be like. For example, you could transport the British NHS to the U.S. What would happen if you did that? The U.S. would cut costs from over 17% to less than 10% and our outcomes would catapult from 17th place to 8th. And, BTW, Britain has the best end-of-life care. That's right. The death panels you want to face are the socialist death panels in Britain, not the capitalist death panels in the U.S.

But since we all know that socialized medicine is too big a pill for this country's populace to swallow (and wouldn't get past our corporate masters), the real solution is publicly-funded healthcare. This is where the federal government simply affirms it will pay for all essential healthcare out of tax revenues. Since those revenues are generally progressive, this means that (unlike a single-payer system) the poor will not be subsidizing healthcare for the rich. I think you could probably just add 2% to everyone's tax bracket and pay for the whole thing. This would eliminate the for-profit system and leave the rest of the structure more-or-less intact.

Lest anyone cry about the poor healthcare companies' profits, let me point out that these are evil profits. Profits in healthcare insurance come at the cost of the suffering and death of people who would otherwise have those profits spent to save their lives or alleviate that suffering.

What I don't understand, really, is why the corporate world didn't step in and make sure that the big healthcare bill didn't include at least a public option. In the aggregate it would be an enormous benefit to the vast majority of companies in America to have the government take healthcare off their backs and simply provide it as a government service. Are they so ideologically blinded that they can't even see when something is to their own benefit? Is it that hard for a company like Caterpillar to understand that if the government pays for healthcare instead of their company that their goods suddenly become cheaper to sell overseas? Right now, our companies are at a tremendous disadvantage in international trade because they have this added cost they have to recoup in their products. Meanwhile, companies from all our major competitors pay none of this cost. Their employees pay it through their own taxes.

And, of course, from the employee's perspective, as you mention, company-funded healthcare means that losing your job can often mean, in the end, losing your life.

This problem will never go away as long as our healthcare is over 15% of GDP. On a personal, corporate and economic level, a national publicly-funded system is the only real way to go. Let's hope the next battle over this will actually fix the problem.

On a purely intellectual level it is very hard to refute the logic of Mr. Boies's argument. It was and is the clearest explanation I have heard on this matter. Excellent segment!

Doesn't the 1st amendment say that the government shall not establish a religion. That also includes the beliefs of any said religion. The individual can choose what ever religion/belief they want to. The beliefs of any religion cannot be mandated on all. If these folks are such good christians then they shouldn't need a "law" to make them believe or follow their beliefs. They can just shut up about all their rumored values and walk the talk. Show us, set the example, be a good steward to the planet all the time, give away most of your wealth to the poor, don't kill or support the killing of other human beings for any reason, remember your god said that all this revenge stuff was his department, not mans. Love all your fellow human beings just as much as you love yourself. Didn't Jesus say "that is was easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to get a rich man into heaven". All of these religious groups can get out of the government or they can pay all of their taxes including those back taxes from the last 20 years or so since they 1st have been messing with the elections process. israel can also get out of our elections process unless they want to pay taxes here and conform to our Constitutional requirements and have a totally secular state government and get rid of that socialistic single payer healthcare system that all jewish israeli's enjoy. Yes I said all of this because of the catholic church's "beliefs" on birth control. Those "beliefs" are theirs and are not the same as all Americans and cannot be mandated on all, even by employers or insurance corporations, if they are going to offer services to the general public for profit or otherwise and get any kind of government support they have to be secular and give all equal support. Without a "religious test". The ultimate act of non belief or lack of faith is for a church to operate a hospital, didn't Jesus say that true faith or belief can heal all wounds, or something to that effect. Yes, come to the "Holy Roller Hospital" where every patient gets a free casket when you check out, and remember all sales are "final", with a strict cash and carry policy. Why is health care so expensive? It doesn't come with a guarantee or warranty. Why are doctors paid more than cooks are, isn't the food you eat a more important part of your overall healthcare? WOW!! I can rant for hours here if I wanted to. LOL! More later.