The health care solution is simple: go back to what we were doing before there was a health care problem. Go back to major medical care insurance that is used as insurance was intended: for an unplanned major medical problem with big price tags like surgery or disease. In 1984 I joined the Navy. Before going in it cost me $25 to go to the OB/GYN. I was only making $5-6/hour and could afford to pay this out of pocket. In 1988 when I got out of the service and called for an appointment they wanted $150. I was still making only $5-6/hour, but I couldn't afford to pay a doctor a whole weeks salary to be seen. What had happened in those 4 years to make medical care unaffordable? HMO's. I still only had Major Medical insurance, and the cost of that insurance was $57/month. Something I could still afford to pay on my $5-6/hr income, along with my mortgage. I just couldn't afford to see a doctor anymore. If we returned to the Major Medical model, competition would lower the doctors fees and insurance costs 80% or so. And doctors would actually make more money because while they charge in excess of $200 for an appointment here in NJ, they only get reimbursed about $60. And from that $60 they would only have to pay 1 person to work in their office to schedule appointments, collect payment and assist in the exam room as needed as was the practice pre-HMO. Now they have to pay a staff of 8-12 people to keep up with the paperwork. And I never feel as though I'm getting the same care and due diligence in the HMO system. And, I hate that I have to go to one doctor to give me permission to go for a specialist appointment that I already know I need to go to. Besides wasting money, it's a waste of my time, and I hate that even more! Wake up America - just go back to what worked when there wasn't a problem!

Since the Republican party has moved so far left it has become in essence the same as the Democratic party (was there really any difference between Romney and Obama?) would it be the worst thing for the Republican party to go the way of the Whigs and be replaced by a Constitutional party? Just because something had value at one point in time, if it's changed so much it's no longer recognizable maybe it's ok to let it go - as long as it's replaced with something aligned with what it originally was over there on the right... Are we just nostalgic for a name? Maybe more from the left would move to the right if it just had a different name.

Interesting - I live in a condo and am on the board. The only conservative on it. The building is older, and quirky and that's much of the charm that attracted me - that and it was cheaper than renting and I'm on a fixed retirement income. Since moving in other progressive liberals have moved in and on the board. They instead see the building a a bunch of problems to be perfected - at a very high cost. And they aren't open to creating an affordable 10-20 year plan, they want it all done in 3-5 years. They see people not being able to keep up with their annual assessments as "maybe they can't afford to live here". I see it as the only place they could afford to live, until a bunch of progressive liberals with money to burn moved...

I wish we'd step back from all immigration and ask ourselves the question of "how many people can the land we have support"? We're importing more and more food as our farm land is sprouting McMansions. What do we want our country to be in the future? What do we want it to look like? How many people can we allow in and stay within that vision? We keep looking at new construction as a great thing - it creates jobs. But I'm not seeing much about our country getting better as it gets more and more populated. Just because people want to come here doesn't mean there is room to make it all happen and retain a quality of life. The quality of life for all seems to be diminishing. Except for the few who profit from our bad decision and...

I think we should use our protection of religious freedom as a reason to prevent Muslim/Islamists from immigrating to the U.S. - they threaten what we protect. I'm sure there are good Muslims out there, but how to you separate the good from the bad any more than we could separate a good German from a bad Nazi in WWII. And German Americans were watched during WWII, and with nothing to hide didn't mind being watched. Why are we so concerned about insulting people immigrating to our country from locations we are at war with? This latest attacker from 4/15/13 immigrated to America. His actions as an American citizen were an act of treason. Shouldn't he be tried by a military court? I don't think there is a "right to remain silent" there.

And, while we are a country that protects religious freedom, we should only allow people in with religions that are likewise open to religious freedom. If the tenant of a religion is to convert or kill people of other faiths, then they are not aligned with our vision and should be denied entrance into our country: block any religion that threatens our religious tolerance with their intolerance of other religions....

We created a country based on religious tolerance allowing all religions to come and not singling out any religions just for convenience of not really liking them. But when creating that vision, we didn't have religions coming that hated all other religion with the intention of destroying them. Seems to allow the muslim religion to come here threatens all the religions/religious freedom that exists in our country. Can't we use that as a reason to have a barrier to that religion: it doesn't just threaten Christianity or Judiasm, but also Hindi, Buddha, etc... Aren't we preserving religious freedom by not allowing people hell bent on religious conversion from coming here?

We created a country based on religious tolerance allowing all religions to come and not singling out any religions just for convenience of not really liking them. But when creating that vision, we didn't have religions coming that hated all other religion with the intention of destroying them. Seems to allow the muslim religion to come here threatens all the religions/religious freedom that exists in our country. Can't we use that as a reason to have a barrier to that religion: it doesn't just threaten Christianity or Judiasm, but also Hindi, Buddha, etc... Aren't we preserving religious freedom by not allowing people hell bent on religious conversion from coming here?

During WWII we didn't let Germans into our country. Why? We were at war with them. We wouldn't allow Japanese into our country. Why? We were at war with them. We even rounded up Japanese and other asian decent people born and raised in America to ensure they weren't a threat. I don't agree with that last part. But, why are we so worried about offending a group of people when we can't tell the good from the bad muslim any more than we could tell a good German from a bad Nazi? There are plenty of other countries they can immigrate to that they aren't blowing up and committing terrorist acts against. Keep them out of the countries that their extremist brethren are blowing up. To me that's not discrimination. It's common sense.

Can you imagine if a Republican VP did that - it would be all over the news! Our biggest problem in America these days is the news - they are selective in reporting, including selective in ignoring, and become rabid dogs against the conservatives they decide to hate. Obama never would have been elected either time if there was actual impartiality in reporting. And we'd probably have Ron Paul for our current president....