KATHERINE NEWMAN Consumer debt Is absolutely catastrophic and we're going to see bankruptcy skyrocket in part because of the bills that the republican congress passed that provided bankruptcy???stripped bankruptcy protection for precisely for the people we're talking about here. The biggest source of bankruptcy is medical expenditures, people who are unable to pay for that appendix to come out, or their elderly parents care. They're loading up credit cards with medical care expenditures. Our medical care system clearly is out of control, and without addressing the fundamental reform, we're going to see a lot more Americans, especially those in the near poor, pushed into bankruptcy. AMY GOODMAN We did not hear much about health care last night. KATHERINE NEWMAN No, we did not. And like I said before, the S-CHIP bill would have been the most progressive thing that could've been done for the missing class in terms of health care. But I think the reason we didn't hear about it is that Bush does not want to talk about what he has permitted to happen under his reign and it is going to be left to the next president or the next congress to deal with. I actually do believe we are going to see some action moving us towards a more universal health care system because the business community is unable to fund it and we're seeing these huge rises in the uninsured. And it's sucking a huge amount of money out of the economy, rising health care costs, almost as bad as the gasoline costs. So I do believe we will see action on that but not in this Presidency, not in this Congress. one reason for the credit crisis is in fact low wages. Easy credit in recent years has been a substitute for decent wages. And that's quite a trap. You're not going to be able to save up and buy that house, but boy, do we have a mortgage for you???ha ha. You know, that's the sort of thing that has been going on. If we do not address the fundamental problem of so many working people in poverty, we're going...