As usual...

[ForeverAutumn]

Michael Moore doesn't know what he's talking about. He should mind his own business and keep out of Canada's affairs. Any conference that would hire him as a keynote speaker has lost all credibility IMO. The example he uses for a private clinic giving H1N1 shots happened before the Province was aware of a vaccine shortage and was approved by the Public Health Dept. The clinic gave the vaccinations to their high risk patients first...just like my own doctor did. An article about the clinic is in the next post.

Michael Moore warns Canadians to stand on guard against creating two Canadas
By The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Canadians need to stand on guard against creating two Canadas when it comes to health care - one for the rich and one for the poor, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore said Tuesday.

Instead, Moore warned, Canadians seem to be on a misguided quest to become more like Americans when it comes to health-care insurance.

"It's not that you need to become more like America," Moore said.

"America needs to become more like you. We need to become more Canadian-like."

While Canada's universal health-care system has its problems, they are nothing like the crisis thrust on Americans who are forced to choose between bankruptcy and seeking medical treatment, the unabashed leftist said.

Canadians do not die or lose their homes because they cannot afford medical treatment, a situation millions of Americans face now and will continue to face, he said.

"A hospital will hire a foreclosure company to go after someone's home and have them thrown out on the curb because they haven't paid the hospital bill," he said.

"Something is seriously wrong with this."

Moore made the comments as keynote speaker at the HealthAchieve 2009 conference and exhibition.

According to a Harvard study, he said, 46,000 Americans die every year simply because they can't get health insurance.

At the same time, he said, private clinics that allowed Canadians with money to get H1N1 flu shots ahead of others were an example of the backward step Canada is taking when it comes to universal access to health care.

"What's going on here? What's happening to you? Why do you want to be like us?"

"In your desire to do it the American way, you then create two Canadas. You're going to drift away from this basic core principle: We're all in the same boat, and we sink or swim together," he said to rousing applause.

The packed, appreciative hall in the cavernous Metro Convention Centre filled alternately with laughter and silence as Moore, renowned for works such as "Bowling for Columbine" and "Sicko," spoke.

Occasionally pushing at his ball cap, Moore took direct aim at President Barack Obama's health-care bill now before the U.S. Congress.

The law, which would mandate that every American buy health insurance, would only enrich medical and drug companies to the tune of billions of dollars while doing little to ensure all Americans have low-cost access to medical care, he said.

"Thirteen million people will still not have health insurance in the United States," Moore said.

The vitriolic debate over the bill in the States has also resulted in fear-mongering and disinformation regarding Canada's system that has resonated with many Americans ignorant of the situation north of the border.

Moore urged Canadians not to allow the falsehoods to go unchecked.

"Do something to tell Americans what it's really like up here," he said.

"Don't just sit back and go, 'That's not our problem, that's your problem.' We're all in this together."

[ForeverAutumn]

Anna Mehler Paperny

Toronto — Globe and Mail Update
Published on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 8:33AM EDT


.As Canadians from coast to coast line up for hours awaiting H1N1 flu vaccinations amid continuing short supply and growing public concern, tens of thousands of patients registered with at least one private Toronto clinic can make appointments to receive shots for themselves and their family members.

Medcan, a private clinic in downtown Toronto, bills itself as a “preventive health-care clinic” and provides extensive medical, counselling and nutritional services, including its signature service: A comprehensive, head-to-toe “executive” medical checkup that costs upward of $2,000.

And now, the 40,000 patients in Medcan’s database are also eligible to make appointments for the sought-after H1N1 vaccine.

Medcan received a shipment of 3,000 shots of adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine from Toronto Public Health Friday, and the clinic’s medical director James Aw said phones have been ringing off the hook and e-mails piling up with requests for appointments.

For now, the clinic is only booking appointments for people considered at high risk of developing complications from the virus, which Dr. Aw said was part of the criteria public health demanded as a condition for supplying the vaccine. He said the clinic’s health-care workers and physicians are also being vaccinated now.

“We’re just trying to co-operate with public health in terms of inoculating Canadians,” he said. “They’ve deemed us as a medical clinic that should receive a limited supply of vaccine to help inoculate people at risk of developing severe disease from this H1N1. So we’re following guidelines, we do have to document who gets the vaccine, we have to report that back to public health.

“We’re just trying to get the vaccine into Canadian arms as soon as we can, and trying to prioritize that to patients that would benefit the most.”

Dr. Aw said they’re also waiting for doses of non-adjuvanted vaccine to give to pregnant women in their database. He added that the clinic is telling anxious clients that don’t fall into a high-risk category to get the vaccines through Toronto Public Health’s vaccination clinics.

An e-mail apparently sent out to members asked those not deemed high risk to “wait to contact us to book an appointment until you receive an e-mail notification from us.”

Dr. Aw said he doesn’t know how many more doses the clinic will receive, although they hope to know by next week.

“I just want to make sure that we avoid any preventable deaths,” he said, adding that demand for the vaccine has “far exceeded” the clinic’s 3,000 doses.

“We’re already into the H1N1 second wave. We have a touch point with some patients in the high-risk groups. It is my priority to get them immunized.”

A spokeswoman for Toronto Public Health couldn’t say Friday night how many private clinics in the city are giving out the vaccine.

[Feanor]

Michael Moore doesn't know what he's talking about. He should mind his own business and keep out of Canada's affairs. Any conference that would hire him as a keynote speaker has lost all credibility IMO. The example he uses for a private clinic giving H1N1 shots happened before the Province was aware of a vaccine shortage and was approved by the Public Health Dept. The clinic gave the vaccinations to their high risk patients first...just like my own doctor did. An article about the clinic is in the next post.
...
Moore might have been wrong about the private clinic giving H1N1 vaccine to non-priority patients, but he is absolute right to warn Canadians against two-tier healthcare.

Two-tiered systems begin with the seemingly reasonable notion that those who can afford to pay ought in order to let public resources go to help those who can't. But they quickly and inevidably degenerate into get/get-not systems where resources flood from the non-payer tier to the payer tier.

Why? With two-tier the payers soon start to believe that their taxes shouldn't have to pay for the poor while they have to pay out of their own pockets. The result in the underfunding of the non-payer tier. Let's have a one-tier system: it's easier to keep the trough filled when everybody has to eat from it.

[ForeverAutumn]

Canadians seem to be on a misguided quest to become more like Americans when it comes to health-care insurance.

It was this comment that I was most referring to. I don't see Canadians wanting to emulate the American health care system.

That, and the fact that a conference of health care workers invited Michael Moore as a keynote speaker. Maybe it's my own prejudice against him, but I woudn't consider him an expert on healthcare, or a motivational speaker, or a comedian. Nope. Can't think of one redeeming quality that would make me want to listen to him as a keynote speaker.

[Feanor]

It was this comment that I was most referring to. I don't see Canadians wanting to emulate the American health care system.

That, and the fact that a conference of health care workers invited Michael Moore as a keynote speaker. Maybe it's my own prejudice against him, but I woudn't consider him an expert on healthcare, or a motivational speaker, or a comedian. Nope. Can't think of one redeeming quality that would make me want to listen to him as a keynote speaker.
Michael Moore isn't an expert on much of anything, I'll grant.

Canadians shouldn't be smug that we'll never see US-style healthcare here. There are self-interested forces here, would-be healthcare entrepreneurs, who would like nothing better. They are very good a lobbing the likes of out present Conservative government for what they want, and the latter is well disposed to any scheme to put money in the pockets of supporters and campaign contributors.

[ForeverAutumn]

That doesn't equal Canadians being on a quest.

Whatever. I just don't like the guy.

[hermanv]

There are plenty of directors not to like (Roman Polanski?) Michael Moore simply uses hyperbole to highlight inequities in our various capitalistic systems. He has won a few awards for good filmaking. Stiring up emotions is his job and he seems to be good at it.

As far as Sicko is concerned, the American system is rife with inequity. Last year my wife was in the emergency room 5 times for stomach cramps so bad she was totally disabled. Still no diagnosis as to what caused these episodes.

We have Blue Shield a very high priced and supposedly excellent health insurance. In each incident she was sent home after being pumped full of morphine after a few hours. At the other end of the scale, a senator or senior administration official will be admitted for a few days of observation if they stub their toe. Our system is so elitist as to be scary, its almost as if we want a return to royalty and serfs.

[ForeverAutumn]

Precisely why Canadians are not on a quest to be like Americans when it comes to health care.

Thanks for making my point. :)

[Feanor]

There are plenty of directors not to like (Roman Polanski?) Michael Moore simply uses hyperbole to highlight inequities in our various capitalistic systems. He has won a few awards for good filmaking. Stiring up emotions is his job and he seems to be good at it.

As far as Sicko is concerned, the American system is rife with inequity. Last year my wife was in the emergency room 5 times for stomach cramps so bad she was totally disabled. Still no diagnosis as to what caused these episodes.
...

I think Moore is getting better; I intend to see Capitalism, A Love Story as soon as I conveniently can. Sicko was quite good: better focus and less hyperbole than either Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine that preceeded it.


...
We have Blue Shield a very high priced and supposedly excellent health insurance. In each incident she was sent home after being pumped full of morphine after a few hours. At the other end of the scale, a senator or senior administration official will be admitted for a few days of observation if they stub their toe. Our system is so elitist as to be scary, its almost as if we want a return to royalty and serfs.
I must admit the treatment you'd get in Canada would be more like Blue Shield than the senators' coverage. But everybody gets the same thing and pays nothing out of pocket.

A big part of the US problem is that the rich believe that they deserve better healthcare than the poor. And they aren't willing to pay more taxes to ensure good care to the latter if it means compromising that their own level of care in the least. That's the moral issue Americans must confront. But feel this, bro -- the compromised quality aspect is largely an illusion: in my opinion, >95% of Americans would be better off personally with a universal, single-payer system.

[kexodusc]

I think Moore may have been referring merely to the incredibly large number of so-called upper and middle class Canadians that are not opposed to exploring a two-tier health care system with careful regulation.

I don't think anyone suggests the US model, but there are some strong moral arguments from this crowd. If I am very sick or injured and I have the means, why can I not pursue receiving the absolute best services available from someone with the skills and ability to help me? We have the resources and the ability, yet we have an artificial barrier to the right to pursue quality of life in this country. The cop-out answer is always "go somewhere else" but that's easy to say. You won't find many doctors arguing in favour of adding a lot of travel, cost, and stress to any treatment schedule. Nor do these people truly understand the destruction that process can cause.

Our fear that it will devolve into a system that offers the bottom of the Med School class doctors and oldest, poorest equipment to the poor, and the best for the rich is the real obstacle here. There are countries that work diligently to manage these competing interests.

I don't what the answer is. Up until a few months ago I didn't care, statistically I suspected the status quo might benefit the majority. A friend of mine was diagnosed with a very bad kind of cancer that spread all over. There was one type of newer treatment that would increase his chances of survival to almost 50%. The 2nd best treatment's chances were just over half of that. Guess which one was not covered by Medicare?

So now in addition to having to pay $1600 bi-weekly for the drug therapy for several months, he has to travel to Boston a few times a month, That's just a layer of cost and complexity that is not needed. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to look at a few other models overseas to see if there's a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

[Feanor]

I think Moore may have been referring merely to the incredibly large number of so-called upper and middle class Canadians that are not opposed to exploring a two-tier health care system with careful regulation.

I don't think anyone suggests the US model, but there are some strong moral arguments from this crowd. If I am very sick or injured and I have the means, why can I not pursue receiving the absolute best services available from someone with the skills and ability to help me? We have the resources and the ability, yet we have an artificial barrier to the right to pursue quality of life in this country. The cop-out answer is always "go somewhere else" but that's easy to say. You won't find many doctors arguing in favour of adding a lot of travel, cost, and stress to any treatment schedule. Nor do these people truly understand the destruction that process can cause.

Our fear that it will devolve into a system that offers the bottom of the Med School class doctors and oldest, poorest equipment to the poor, and the best for the rich is the real obstacle here. There are countries that work diligently to manage these competing interests.

I don't what the answer is. Up until a few months ago I didn't care, statistically I suspected the status quo might benefit the majority. A friend of mine was diagnosed with a very bad kind of cancer that spread all over. There was one type of newer treatment that would increase his chances of survival to almost 50%. The 2nd best treatment's chances were just over half of that. Guess which one was not covered by Medicare?

So now in addition to having to pay $1600 bi-weekly for the drug therapy for several months, he has to travel to Boston a few times a month, That's just a layer of cost and complexity that is not needed. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to look at a few other models overseas to see if there's a way we can have our cake and eat it too?
Like I said, if you want to keep the trough full, you've go to make everyone eat from it.

Those in the US who fear rationing have a legitimate fear -- you won't catch me denying that. One form of rationing is waiting lists which are still a problem here in Canada. Another form of rationing is a strict cost vs. medical benefit calculus.

So with the sort of example you raise, the more expensive treatement might save 2x as many lives but cost 6x as much. Is it worth it? There is no clear answer in the case of an individual procedure But if the cost per life saved with that procedure is more than same for some other procedure, than the latter should get the fund. Or am I wrong? The only hope for the former is higher overall funding.

Actually "higher overall funding" is the best arguement for a two-tiered system. In this case the rich can decide what their own lives are worth and pay it. OK, sounds good, sounds rational, but personally I oppose it because ...

The rich who want self-paid care option will begin to resent the taxes they pay to support the public-paid option; inevidably this will erode public-pay and shift resources to the self-pay option. The result is that ...
Some people will get better healthcare than others based on their ability to pay -- which was the basic problem to begin with.

[ForeverAutumn]

I don't what the answer is. Up until a few months ago I didn't care, statistically I suspected the status quo might benefit the majority. A friend of mine was diagnosed with a very bad kind of cancer that spread all over. There was one type of newer treatment that would increase his chances of survival to almost 50%. The 2nd best treatment's chances were just over half of that. Guess which one was not covered by Medicare?

So now in addition to having to pay $1600 bi-weekly for the drug therapy for several months, he has to travel to Boston a few times a month, That's just a layer of cost and complexity that is not needed. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to look at a few other models overseas to see if there's a way we can have our cake and eat it too?

To be fair, that happens here too. I had a friend who had brain cancer. One the treatments that his doctor recommended was not covered by OHIP (Ontario's public plan). The cost was $1500 a week for ten weeks. That's $15,000! To his credit he had purchased Critical Illness insurance years before when he was healthy, so he had the means to pay for this treatment. Without that insurance, I'm not sure what he would have done.

I hope you friend recovers and regains his health soon.

[hermanv]

A big part of the US problem is that the rich believe that they deserve better healthcare than the poor. And they aren't willing to pay more taxes to ensure good care to the latter if it means compromising that their own level of care in the least. That's the moral issue Americans must confront. But feel this, bro -- the compromised quality aspect is largely an illusion: in my opinion, >95% of Americans would be better off personally with a universal, single-payer system.
I suspect many are just unaware that they get special treatment. It's like a core belief many republicans hold that anyone can make it if they are just willing to work. Ignoring completely the family or cronies connections that helped them get great jobs, good schools or rapid advancement. In much the same way the assumption is that anyone with health care insurance will receive the same level of care is just untrue.

Recently a routine CAT scan revealed a spot on my lung, my doctor immediately recommended a PET scan. I read that these are nearly 100% effective at determining if cancer is present. My insurance (Blue Shield) refused to fund the test. My doctor smarter than many, told the insurance company he would just send me to the emergency room to have the test performed (my policy requires them to pay for emergency room visits), but that this would double the cost. The insurance company relented. It took many phone calls, facsimiles and a lot of time to complete the funding battle, driving up costs without direct medical benefit. ps. The test showed no presence of cancer. pps. The cost of the test equaled one month's insurance premium.

[kexodusc]

Like I said, if you want to keep the trough full, you've go to make everyone eat from it.

Those in the US who fear rationing have a legitimate fear -- you won't catch me denying that. One form of rationing is waiting lists which are still a problem here in Canada. Another form of rationing is a strict cost vs. medical benefit calculus.

So with the sort of example you raise, the more expensive treatement might save 2x as many lives but cost 6x as much. Is it worth it? There is no clear answer in the case of an individual procedure But if the cost per life saved with that procedure is more than same for some other procedure, than the latter should get the fund. Or am I wrong? The only hope for the former is higher overall funding.

Actually "higher overall funding" is the best arguement for a two-tiered system. In this case the rich can decide what their own lives are worth and pay it. OK, sounds good, sounds rational, but personally I oppose it because ...

The rich who want self-paid care option will begin to resent the taxes they pay to support the public-paid option; inevidably this will erode public-pay and shift resources to the self-pay option. The result is that ...
Some people will get better healthcare than others based on their ability to pay -- which was the basic problem to begin with.
I agree with your points...and find myself conflicted on this issue.

I could argue that the rich are already paying for what health care they want - but are doing so outside our borders, which results in money leaving the country not being taxed, and not being reinvested in health-care. We could be offering an alternative that at least gets some tax revenue back in the system. Some is better than none.

And the rich have opposed taxes for health care since medicare went online, yet our governments have resisted their calls...I'll need more tangible evidence than fear to believe that we can't continue to force them to pay their share of taxes...Canada has shown a tremendous ability to tax everyone.

And some people are getting better health care based on their wealth now...they're just exporting demand and wealth outside Canadian borders. It is purely political semantics to think we're fighting some moral war on that front - that is a reality in which we have no power to control.

But I very much share your concerns...if some hybrid system is NOT carefully managed, it could possibly lead to a reduction in the quality available to the majority of public medicare users.

[blackraven]

There are plenty of directors not to like (Roman Polanski?) Michael Moore simply uses hyperbole to highlight inequities in our various capitalistic systems. He has won a few awards for good filmaking. Stiring up emotions is his job and he seems to be good at it.

As far as Sicko is concerned, the American system is rife with inequity. Last year my wife was in the emergency room 5 times for stomach cramps so bad she was totally disabled. Still no diagnosis as to what caused these episodes.

We have Blue Shield a very high priced and supposedly excellent health insurance. In each incident she was sent home after being pumped full of morphine after a few hours. At the other end of the scale, a senator or senior administration official will be admitted for a few days of observation if they stub their toe. Our system is so elitist as to be scary, its almost as if we want a return to royalty and serfs.

As an emergency room Dr. I can tell you that in our ER, we see about 150 patients a day. We probably see 15-30 patients a day with abdominal pain, many of which is chronic or recurrent. The majority of abdominal pain patients are women. I can honestly tell you that in at least 50% we find no know cause, and its not for a lack of trying. We do Cat Scans, Ultrasounds and multiple lab tests and never find a thing! Thats not to say that there isn't any pain, its just that in most cases it is functional pain, irritable bowel syndrome, endometriosis, menstrual pain, ovulatory pain or stress induced. There are no tests that we can do to diagnose these problems, all except endometriosis (which can be diagnosed by a surgical procedure called laproscopy) are diagnoses of exclusion. Meaning we have ruled out other causes. It's no different in Canada and the rest of the world. (by the way, my daughter has had reccurrent abdominal pain of unknown cause. She has had Cat Scans, Ultrasounds, colonoscopy and EGD's and nothing has been found).

This is one of the problems that the public does not understand. They expect miracles of modern medicine. But many times we just don't have the answer. But as usual, Dr.s are to blame!

[hermanv]

I find particularly abhorrent the cry that high taxes stifle growth. During the '50s our graduated and progressive tax table had taxes of 71% or more in the upper tiers. I do feel this is too high, but the period was one of spectacular economic growth effectively creating the middle class. Nearly everyone did well.

Under Bush upper tier taxes were cut again and again and except for those who were already well off, no economic explosion took place. Quite the opposite, lack of wage growth did it's share of contributing to the housing collapse of 2008.

There is no doubt in my mind that relieving small business of heath care costs will help this traditional engine of economic growth improve its' performance. This should generate a great deal of income tax, offsetting much of the health care expenditures

[Feanor]

I find particularly abhorrent the cry that high taxes stifle growth. During the '50s our graduated and progressive tax table had taxes of 71% or more in the upper tiers. I do feel this is too high, but the period was one of spectacular economic growth effectively creating the middle class. Nearly everyone did well.

Under Bush upper tier taxes were cut again and again and except for those who were already well off, no economic explosion took place. Quite the opposite, lack of wage growth did it's share of contributing to the housing collapse of 2008.

There is no doubt in my mind that relieving small business of heath care costs will help this traditional engine of economic growth improve its' performance. This should generate a great deal of income tax, offsetting much of the health care expenditures
It's a quasi-religious doctrine that low taxes stimulate the economy but it's not necessarily true. What stimulates the economy is as a greater propensity to spend than to save -- this J.M. Keynes demonstrated decades ago -- and low taxe are not the only or even the best way to do this.

Nor do lower taxes necessarily stimulate investment. It will only have that effect if the rich perceive that there are good (domestic) investment opportunities. Otherwise they will simply safe their tax relief or else invest it off-shore, which is exactly the result of the "bribe the rich" strategy of the Republican regimes.

If governments "tax and spend" it is just as likely to stimulate the economy and investment as low taxes. Money is just as spent if spent by the government by consumers; government demand is just as much demand as is consumer demand and just as likely to stimulate investment -- a lot more so if the money is spent on, say, healthcare or infrastructure than if spent by consumers on foreign-produced goods or invested off-shore by investors.

[hermanv]

1. If the wealthy invest a tax rebate or tax decrease in the stock market, that doesn't directly stimulate business. It only serves to enrich those already holding that stock.

2. In the past putting money into a bank increased the bank's ability to loan money usually with a direct stimulus to the economy. Today the bank is just as likely to reinvest in mutual funds (see 1. above) or overseas.

3. Increasing taxes is very likely to stimulate the economy as long as the government doesn't spend the money on overseas wars or for foreign aid.

The trick is to get money moving or circulating. For the bailout I feel paying the back foreclosure debt of homeowners would have gotten the same money into the banking system with the added benefit of stimulating those same homeowners to spend their money elsewhere. I think the feedback from that solution would have gotten the country a far greater bang per dollar of TARP money. It would have worked like the "clunker" program helped Detroit. Additionally it would have shored up housing prices as some percentage of those homes would not end up in future foreclosures.

I know I'm oversimplifying, but a forum is hardly a good place the write a thesis.

[thekid]

IMHO the problem with Moore is that he takes some very good facts about his subject matter and then stretches them to the breaking point. Many of the issues he is drawn to need to be drawn "out to the light". Investigative journalism for the most part has all but evaporated in the media today and Moore could effectively fill that gap if he could just stick to the facts and the correct context of the facts.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I find particularly abhorrent the cry that high taxes stifle growth. During the '50s our graduated and progressive tax table had taxes of 71% or more in the upper tiers. I do feel this is too high, but the period was one of spectacular economic growth effectively creating the middle class. Nearly everyone did well.

Funny you mention this, because I read about this the other day as a way of returning this country back to financial health.


Under Bush upper tier taxes were cut again and again and except for those who were already well off, no economic explosion took place. Quite the opposite, lack of wage growth did it's share of contributing to the housing collapse of 2008.

Which is a strong argument ( and well documented) for returning back to the high tax bracket for the wealthy.


There is no doubt in my mind that relieving small business of heath care costs will help this traditional engine of economic growth improve its' performance. This should generate a great deal of income tax, offsetting much of the health care expenditures

Exactly!, however the very wealthy in this country have actually gotten quite a bit more selfish than the wealthy used to be. Any idea of sharing their wealth with a person of lesser means is completely frowned upon here. Our pure capitalistic system has bred some of the worst cases of greed I have ever seen.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

1. If the wealthy invest a tax rebate or tax decrease in the stock market, that doesn't directly stimulate business. It only serves to enrich those already holding that stock.

2. In the past putting money into a bank increased the bank's ability to loan money usually with a direct stimulus to the economy. Today the bank is just as likely to reinvest in mutual funds (see 1. above) or overseas.

3. Increasing taxes is very likely to stimulate the economy as long as the government doesn't spend the money on overseas wars or for foreign aid.

The trick is to get money moving or circulating. For the bailout I feel paying the back foreclosure debt of homeowners would have gotten the same money into the banking system with the added benefit of stimulating those same homeowners to spend their money elsewhere. I think the feedback from that solution would have gotten the country a far greater bang per dollar of TARP money. It would have worked like the "clunker" program helped Detroit. Additionally it would have shored up housing prices as some percentage of those homes would not end up in future foreclosures.

I know I'm oversimplifying, but a forum is hardly a good place the write a thesis.

You are channeling Elizabeth Warren here. She makes a very good argument for fixing our current situation from the bottom up, not from the top down like it has been done. We can now see that a top down fix will only lead to the top getting fixed, while the foundation and engine that drives this economy will largely languish. The bailout has done very little to jump start this economy, but it sure has benefited Wall street big time.