Bernie Michalik's posterous site

Watching the wrangling of the Health Care debate in the U.S. makes me appreciate the importance of government structure when it comes to democracy. Essentially you can bypass representational government by structuring your government bodies in a way that a small number of participants can have overly signifigant power.

Now, this is no different than an election. In a close election, a handful of people can determine the outcome of many. However, they cannot know this, because the result is determined all at once. Otherwise, if the handful were known and designated, they would exercise their power. But in a closed body like the U.S. Senate, the handful of people who can determine the outcome are known and therefore are able to exercise this power.

It's very interesting. Need to thing more about this.

One thing for sure: the more I see the U.S. Senate in action, the more I want to see the Canadian Senate abolished. Bicameral bodies are not the way to go.