"Some blame must be placed on the nation’s education system; but at some point humans must accept personal responsibility; those who have made the choice to accept and believe the script have long since abdicated responsibility for their existence on this planet: Hence the “what’s in it for me” mentality on exhibition at these “town hall” meetings."

* I would like to know how much the media is spinning these meetings as well. I'm sure many of the legitimate protestors(not the organized PR rabble-rousers) were concerned with bailouts and stimulus and maybe showed up at these town hall meetings to express their outrage at a public forum with a health care bill that maybe they see as more b.s. from this administration. The jury is still out for me as to what is actually going on - to me it seems like more divide and conquer. There was not nearly as much coverage on people protesting the bailouts - so again, our reality is being shaped by what the news media is putting in front of us, it was not important for us to know how much protest there was for the bailouts.

"Any reformation in healthcare, however, will not fix the “system,” for example; you mentioned HMO’s or PPO’s for that matter, the cost of becoming an MD in this country is so prohibitive that graduates, unless they are a member of the Bush class, have no choice but to register with one of these agencies, so how does one avoid them?"

* That is a good point. I could see part of a legitimate outrage linked to the fact that the kind of healthcare that one's receive now that the doctor/patient relationship is mediated by these corporate/federal hybrids known as HMO's is only going to be further entrenched, perhaps now with even further stipulations, red tape, etc. although it is being masqueraded as a positive step. The private insurance companies and drug companies will now have a completely captive audience, federally mandated. Perhaps similar to a sweetheart deal between Bechtel or Halliburton and the federal government.