The challenges faced by the new Congress are many, but none is more important than the challenge to overcome the hypocrisy of the formerly controlling religious right on health care issues. Many of the religious right, and their legislators, resist the call for universal health coverage, despite the christian motto forged by the Second Commandment, which sounds suspiciously like the Golden Rule "Do Unto Others." Most of the right-wing politicians only want the type of healthcare reforms that strip rights from injured victims, not the reforms that increase access to good, affordable healthcare. The insurance companies have used the politicians to accomplish their goal--to save money when you are hurt or killed by the healthcare system. As the insurance lobbyists get their way more and more, healthcare consumers will be left holding the empty bag. They run the system. Funny thing about the whole system is that when people realize that they might become one of the 190,000 people killed each year by hospital errors, or the 1.5 million people injured each year by medication errors, then they start realizing that their positions don't work when applied to them personally. Beware of the laws you support today, as you may well be the victim of them tomorrow!! We are proud that our hospitals are being infused with the brightest talent, energy and education that we can provide, but we mourn when our loved one become a statistic-one of 190,000 people who die every year as a result of hospital error; one of 90,000 people who die every year from hospital-acquired infections; one of 1.5 million people every year who is injured by a medication error. We should mourn that there is an irony here. The leaders in Congress were busy trying to take away from the victims of medical error the right to seek justice, at that same time that they were ignoring the plight of the sixteen-year old pages. Makes you wonder who they have been protecting. It's not the youth, it's not the sick and injured, it's not the needy or the poor or the downtrodden. They don't even protect the soldiers they send abroad to protect us. And who is it that we now read are the "Godless" ones? Oh, yes, it's those crazy Godless liberals. By which God's standards do we come to that conclusion? One of the challenges of the newly elected Congress will be to help those who have been left behind by the health care system. It is those who are uninsured, those who are hurt and those who have been robbed of the right to hold the system accountable. Michael Townes Watson, author of America's Tunnel Vision--How Insurance Companies' Propaganda Is Corrupting Medicine and Law. www.StopMedicalError.com