"I don't want the guys who ran the Katrina cleanup running my health care system."

What a wonderful quote. Romney's threat might be paraphrased as follows: If you expand the federal role in health care, the Republicans will one day in be in charge, and they'll mess it up as badly as they messed up FEMA.

It's amazing Stan. I can think of a handful of things that government does really well. I would say things like the military, national parks service, US postal service they do well. And there are things which the government simply must do regardless of their competence, such as police, courts, judicial system, and so forth.

But only in government do we seriously consider giving people more money, more power, more control after they relentlessly screw things up. FEMA is just one. And FEMA has never been an effective agency. What about the public education system (which has been broken for generations)? We have a State Department which can't even process passport renewals correctly. Do we really think we are safer in the air after 9/11 due to the federal baggage screeners?

We all acknowledge that there is a problem with the cost of accessibility to health care. But why is our automatic answer to give that problem over to the government? Why do we think they're going to get this right?

The whole recent immigration "reform" bill was illegitimate on its face, because it relied on the federal government to adequately administer an immensely complex and hard to control bunch of checks on aliens coming and going. That one didn't pass the giggle test.

But politicians of all parties constantly say, "We need more money" to do the same job they have failed at forever. And there are those in this country who believe it is a virtue to continue handing problems and power to the government, that by doing so one can say "they care."

You should add Medicare to the things the federal goverment does well. Its administrative overhead is lower than that of ANY private insurance. This is certainly relevant to the argument on heath.

FEMA did so well under Clinton that even Bush, in the 2000 Presidential debates, praised it.