This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments to ministries of health and other ministries to the pharmaceutical industry and the business community that certain actions now should be undertaken with increased urgency and at an accelerated pace.

Health care costs blunt the competitive edge of American entrepreneurs from the auto industry to internet start-ups.

There's definitely evidence that capitalism at its most ruthless rewards psychopathic behavior. When you look at the worst corners of the American health insurance industry or the sub-prime banking market it really feels like the more psychopathically someone behaves the more it's rewarded.

I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.

But you say does it represent change? The change is that we are fighting an insurance industry that has killed health reform for generations. They're spending tens of millions of dollars right now to defeat this bill and we're on the doorstep of winning a great victory for the American people.

Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.

As musicians and artists it's important we have an environment - and I guess when I say environment I really mean the industry that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society.

Lost wealth may be replaced by industry lost knowledge by study lost health by temperance or medicine but lost time is gone forever.

So many people equate money and success with happiness especially in the music industry.

History shows that our way of life is the stronger way. From it has come more wealth more industry more happiness more human enlightenment than from any other way.