They include high school students (encouraging them to go into social science), doctors (arguing that letting sick, ill-informed patients choose between treatments shirks responsibility) and nonprofits (suggesting they do more experiments assessing whether their methods work).

FORBES: Magazine Article

Conservatives, he says, have always accepted an obligation to help the poor, the sick and the ill-educated.

ECONOMIST: Why the Tories are defending the welfare state

And now, because of exposure to toxins from the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, there's about 20, 000 people who are sick -- some of them gravely ill, suffering from serious health effects, some are disabled, some have died.

WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Takes Questions from Senate Democrats

Twenty percent of the sick account for 80 percent of the costs under Medicare -- typically the chronically ill, folks who have diabetes, for example.

WHITEHOUSE: Shared Responsibility and Shared Prosperity Town Hall