Hi Joe 2007. I don't know what happened to my responsive post from a couple of days ago, but I will try again. My intent was not to offend you. I should have left politics to private conversations! Your initial post stated you were particularly concerned with Vertex. As far as I can discern, Vertex is not running any trial at the NIH Clinical Center, the research Facility for the NIH. The NIH bulletin from their site, which I copied and inserted as a post, only indicated that trials at the NIH Center might not be able to recruit new participants until the shutdown ended. This does not seem to apply to third party researchers - such as Vertex. I am also not aware of any trials funded by the NIH directly involving cystic fibrosis. Having said that, all research benefits all research. You never know what will provide a breakthrough. But it really WOULD be nice if the Feds could help fund some of the research so vital to CF. Perhaps they will get on the bandwagon soon since there have been breakthrough discoveries and technologies that have such a wide implication for genetic diseases in general.
As for the deficit and it's relationship to the health care insurance issues that are so critical to us all - let me just say that in my house, a deficit is when the amount of money I need to pay on our debts exceeds the amount of money coming in. When that happens, we have two choices - decrease our debt or increase our income. Either way, if we manage to do either one, the deficit will certainly decrease, since my SHORTFALL (read "deficit") between income and expenses has decreased. But if I choose to increase my income (I.e. read "increase taxes") without reducing my debt, despite decreasing the shortfall (deficit) my debt load is actually higher. The Feds have chosen to increase income, rather than decrease debt. I don't much like the idea that the average American family of four has to see a $7400 a year increase in health care expenses to increase the Feds income which mathematically decreases the deficit. On top of that, if my spouse goes out and tries to incur another large debt, I can either put my foot down and say no, since we don't have the income to make the payments, or I can increase my tolerance for unmanageable debt - i.e. increase our debt ceiling - and not say anything, just smile sweetly. There is not an untenable connection. No one, not any one no matter how high up, should refuse to negotiate any of the possible debt solutions on the table. That's my take on it. And it's okay that we disagree, isn't it?