Health Care Cost vs. War Cost--Your Priority

The battle cry against health care reform echos through Congress and the talking heads of the right wing media as: "How will it (health care reform) be paid for?" This rhetorical question is never answered in a positive manner, as if there are no answers other than more of the same. The sooth sayers of doom would rather do nothing about health care than accept the status quo. Allow more than 100 million of our citizens do without adequate health care while all of those working for government are given subsidized health care. If all local, state, federal employees are counted plus all elected officials plus all veterans, plus all active military, plus all medicaid recipients, plus all medicare recipients the total now covered by some form of tax payer subsidized health care must exceed 150 million people (about half the USA population).

More than 17% of our gross national budget of $13-14 trillion dollars is annually spent on health care in the USA. This is more than double the percentage spent in countries that have universal, single payer health care for all of their people. Nonetheless, countries that have universal single payer health care have better health care outcomes as measured by recoveries and overall quality of health and everyone has access. England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. and all Great Britain surpasses our country as do Germany, France, Brussels, Spain,Canada, Japan, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Sweden and all economically advanced countries of the world. Ours is the only advanced country that fails to provide health care for all citizens paid by taxes. We seem to have more important priorities, mainly war and military objectives that must be paid before such silly purpose as universal health care be supported.

The cost of the Iraq War alone, since 2002 is nearly $700 billion dollars, and our world wide military expenditures exceed $2 trillion dollars annually when all related expenditures are included (VA, CIA, many hundreds of world-wide military bases, military reserve and national guard, weapon procurement and development, military pensions and disabilities, Pentagon, NSA, and untold secret expenditures). Including World War II, the total cost of all USA war related expenditures easily exceeds $500 trillion dollars in todays dollar, or a minimum of $8 trillion dollars per year.

Imagine what could be achieved with just one-fourth of this amount per year. Two trillion dollars per year deducted from war related expenditures could finance universal health care and leave more than a trillion dollars for other essential purposes. Improved schools, roads, public transportation, energy research, and ongoing educational opportunities for all citizens.

Today those opposed to universal health care claim that the cost will exceed $1.6 trillion dollars over 10 years, or about $160 billion dollars per year. This is considered to be excessive by the same Congress that allows military and war-related costs to grow unchecked and virtually unquestioned, and that is about 10% of war-related annual tax expenditures.

If the spiral of military spending continues unchecked our destiny will be involvement in endless wars to justify the expenditures. As the former presidential Republican candidate, Sen, John McCain gleefully sang during the recent campaign, "Bomb, bomb, Iran" as he danced a jig, his refrain will ring continuously as we joyously engage in one war after another to "save the world".

We have an opportunity to advocate health care for all and reset our national priorities, but only if we the people stand up and tell the political leaders that they must change course. If we fail, the pathway to perpetual war will propel our country and the world into an unimaginable abyss. Advocacy of Universal Health Care will help change our course as a nation as our sense of priority becomes renewed for constructive purposes. Act now and contact your elected representatives in Congress and state legislative bodies. Our generation and our future loved ones depend upon your involvement and actions.

Survival is in Our Hands

Starting with this blog, my focus will be the environment, and particularly water quality issues. My recently published book, " A Drinker's Guide to Pure Water--Is Your Water Safe?" established my near term direction. We have reached a point in the history of our planet that demands attention and action to rectify our degarding environment. This should not be a political issue, but many have made it one. So be it. My blog, as does my book, scrapes away scabs to reveal the full story and unearth political involvements if any exist.

We are all bedfellows when environment issues raise their head. Earth is our home, and we must sleep in the environmental bed that we make. If bedbugs lurk between the sheets we must flush them out, and find the source. We cannot simply sleep with them and pretend that they will simply go away. Our environmental problems are becoming major crises and as such we must tackle them realistically.

Toxic water is a reality in daily life. We breathe contaminated air with every breath. Tainted food kills. Poisoned land and ladfill waste abounds. Yet we pretend that nothing can harm us or our loved one's other that some unforeseen war, horrible accident, or act of nature. The environment that we allow to surround us is quicly dismissed after a sensational environmental accident occurs, or people die from food poisoining, or a some other disaster causes extensive pollution damage and death.

Yet, we live in an ever increasing toxic world caused by industrial contamination, toxic waste from toxic products, and archaic sewage treatments that poison vast water ways, air, and land. Simple greed counts more to some industrial executives than the safety and health of their workers and the consuming public as they profit from the production of toxic products that spread poisons into the environment. Elected politicians and appointed bureaucrats often dismiss environmental realities to curry favors to their money bags and high-placed supporters.

We, the six billion ordinary people of the world are simultaneously the victims and the enablers of the global environmental spiral downward. Somehow we must grasp the consequences of this duplex folly and awaken. We must demand that the world leaders stop wars against one another and instead join the human race to combat the inevitable environmental disaster that is on the horizon if we fail to act. The toxic world coupled with global warming represent the most compelling reason for world cooperation, rather than continued world hostility. The choice is ours. We, the six billion ordinary people must reach out to each other and create a world that encompasses passion for life and a sustainable environment for all livng things.

This passion for survival must enable us to "Work as One for the Survival of All". Our environment is the common bond that we all share with other life forms as this tiny planet spins and rotates in the endless heavens above. We must not, we cannot, let each other down. Let us all join hands and work for the survival of all species of life. Let us begin this journey now.