Health care for the entire universe!?

Everyone these days is talking about health care. Those who have it, those who don't, and especially those who want it. There seems to be a lot of jargon surrounding this proposed universal heath care plan (what? we're supposed to be supporting health care for the entire universe!?!) and while I'm all for heath care overhaul, there is one article I found particularly timely on NPR (of course) called "Drug Firms Pour $40 Million Into Health Care Debate."

Basically, in the past 3 months alone, PhRMA has spent an average of $3 million a week lobbying congress on the new heath care bill:

"PhRMA alone has 29 people lobbying for it. [...] You'll find that PhRMA also hired 45 different Washington, D.C., lobbying firms to represent it in those three months of the second quarter.

"Most of the drug companies that belong to PhRMA are running their own lobby shops as well, plus the biggest ones have also hired dozens of D.C. lobbying firms.

"So think about it this way: There are far more people in Washington representing one party of the debate — the big drug companies — than there are members of Congress working on the health care bill."

And we wonder why it takes so long to get any drastic change accomplished around here.