I think our historical 1st Amendment roots will keep us from going the route of Canada regarding free speech issues; from my limited knowledge, the US is one of the most liberal countries regarding free speech rights, and doesn’t seem inclined to change.

But on health care, I think your hope might disappoint. It seems the media have been successful on making health care a national “crisis”, which means the politicians must get involved. I think there are enough people out there who don’t really appreciate what “free” health care entails – people of voting age – that politicians will exploit those needy people. I think it’s a close race whether we’ll have some sort of national health care system or college football playoffs first: both bad ideas and products of people unable to see forward or backward more than a day.

On a related note, I happened to catch some of a Pres. Elect Obama speech on CNN, just for a minute. A couple of people in the crowd behind him were holding signs with his slogans on them: “Change We Need”. But the camera angle cut off the top part of the signs. So the image was Obama, surrounded by people with signs saying, “We Need”. Unfortunately, the sentiment of “government, save us” seems popular right now, and the incoming administration, also unfortunately, seems eager to act as savior.