Unless you've been on another planet or under a rock somewhere, you know Edward "Ted" Kennedy died August 26 at age 77. I suppose some were sad to see him go and others happy to be shed of him - he's like the rest of us, he did some good things and he's done some things that haunted him all the way to the grave. But regardless of how you felt about him, here is a short clip (4:10) in which he articulates a very cogent message regarding the crux of the issue with health care in this country. So, get past the great liberal and listen to what he had to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrJVbCzJH6c&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpol.moveon.org%2Fkennedy%2F%3Fid%3D17001-5847560-OApANix%26t%3D1&feature=player_embedded

Now, after you watch the video here is another little tidbit to ponder:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/bankruptcy.medical.bills/

According to this tidbit from CNN: 60%, yes, you read that right, 60% of personal bankruptcies in these United States are due to unexpected or unforeseen medical costs. In 2009 there are expected to be about 1.5 million personal bankruptcies - that means about 900,000 of them will be due to medical costs.

Oh yeah, one final thought, according to information from the proxy statements of healthcare companies Aetna, Cigna, Coventry, Healthnet, Humana, UnitedHealth Group, and Wellpoint, the CEO's are - pardon the pun - making a killing. Now granted, all of them saw their average compensation decrease between 2007 and 2008 - from an average of $ 14,288,523 to $ 9,694,177 - a considerable decline, but still a nice ANNUAL paycheck. And although I don't have information to support it, I feel safe in saying that if the CEO's are making this kind of money, well the rest of the C-suite and staff are also doing pretty well. Oh . . . no doubt their lobbyists are doing well too. This is not news, it was reported on the site WebMD in 2007:

http://blogs.webmd.com/mad-about-medicine/2007/08/ceo-compensation-who-said-healthcare-is.html

I could go on with several stories of actual people that I actually know who have suffered terrible financial loss due to medical issues - good people that did the right things, worked hard, saved their money, but were wiped out by something they had little control over - a bad heart, a cancer, Alzheimer's, not a "lifestyle" disease - but I think you get the point.

One final link - this is an interesting presentation explaining the healthcare insurance debates:

http://zentricity.posterous.com/

So, that's my perspective.