All rhetoric, No substance.

The remaining candidates have it all wrong. The Republican candidate make no pretense of caring for the uninsured and has no idea that the health care system is imploding. The Democratic contenders, while aware there are problems seem to think all they have to do is provide insurance coverage! The Massachussetts program is in deep financial trouble. The California program died in committee. The New Jersey plan is unlikely to go anywhere as it only focuses on insurance, mainly for children. Until the plans stop looking at hospital costs and freedom of choice for anything one wants, and focuses on a primary care home for everyone, and sets limits to interventions there will be nothing except sets of new unfulfilled promises. It is time we learn from every other nation in the world that access to health services has to start in the primary care arena, with a single practice responsible for comprehensive care, acting as a gate keeper. Further. such care has to place an emphasis on preventing disease, not just intervening after symptoms occur. There is no way any system can pay for everything. There must be be evidence that interventions work, particularly in the realm of all the "me-too" prescriptions, many of which are overpriced and undereffective. Prescription advertising has to stop.. Any program that ensures population wide access must include a system that precludes some interventions as too expensive and inneffective. This is even more important with all the new research in genetics that will translate into useful inteventions within the next decade, and the associated population boom..