Democrats did not exactly try to prevent people from buying homes they couldn't afford--or to prevent the government from spending money they didn't have. Fair

Democrats did not exactly try to prevent people from buying homes they couldn't afford--or to prevent the government from spending money they didn't have. Fair point. Both parties had a hand in the subprime mess. For the record, I'm not a fan of the Democratic party at all. On the other hand, it's Republicans (and some spineless Democrats who followed them) who led the way in passing tax cuts for the rich while getting us into an extremely expensive, unnecessary, immoral and arguably illegal war. Private health insurance is still very exciting to, e.g., Canadian politicians. A health care system in which costs are not paid by a) the physician, or b) the patient, is necessarily going to have high prices, shortages, or both. That's why Canada pays the largest percentage of GDP on healthcare expenses, has 6- to 12-hour ER waits as a matter of course, 3-month waits to see specialists in most of the country, so much bureaucracy that most medical practices have to hire someone full time to deal with it, and has life expectancy, infant mortality, and preventable death rates that are terrible by OECD standards. Oh wait... sorry, I got that wrong; that's us.