While our law makers in Washington DC are busy campaigning, raising funds for their campaigns, or trying to decide the fate of Justin and Janet, real issues are being ignored.

I watched C-span this morning and saw Robert Wachter, the author of his book Internal Bleeding: The Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes describe how the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of Americans die each day (that's almost 100,000 people a year folks) due to a flawed hospital system. He explained that because of the fragmentation of care in modern medicine, errors are often due to communication problems that arise during patient "handoffs." He also pointed out that medicine lacks the kind of safeguards used in other high-tech industries like the commercial airline business.

How come all we hear about healthcare in this country is how many American don't have it (somewhere around 40 million at last count). With this scary stuff going on in hospitals, maybe these people are better off than they realize.

Seriously, though, I would love to hear all of our elected officials raise questions (and provide answers) to questions such as this, instead of the soundbites and talking points that they feed to us on a regular basis.