Healthcare, the Issue that divides Us

The Other side of the Debate

"A country that fails to take care of those who have the least, is destined to end up on the ash heap of history, for if it neglects such moral questions at home, it follows that it will act without morality abroad in its foreign policy."

When you think about it, it never fails amaze, that in this country, in the 21st century, we still have millions and millions of people without healthcare. The so-called richest nation in the world, which is spending hundreds of billions in the remotest regions of the world, for national security, cannot find the funds to provide an affordable, equitable and accessible healthcare system for its citizens' security.

Choosing Death over Life

It seems that when we need to come up with billions for some new war making technology, the money is found, and in that action, lies the irony that for this country the ability to cause death and destruction, is more important than the ability to protect life and save lives from destruction. We have a government that is dominated by those who preach about the sanctity of life, reducing their interpretation of it, to a puddle of fluid, that cannot be used to save other lives and cure the sick.

Show Me the $$$

But these same folks, when confronted with the idea of single payer healthcare, will scream and shout, about it being socialist healthcare and limiting the people's right to choose. What they are not saying is that big insurance, the AMA and the Drug companies are paying out millions in what could be and should be called bribes to members of congress and senate to insure that this issue will never see the light of day inside the beltway.

All Politics is Local

That is why we have to start this process, state by state, and in Ohio, people have started the process. The initiative is being pushed by a group called SPAN Ohio, which stands for Single Payer Action Network Ohio. Locally, there are meetings set for the 10th of January in Norwalk at 10 a.m., at the VFW Hall on Milan Avenue, and at BGSU Firelands, Huron, in Foundation Hall, Room 204 at 1 p.m., the object is to establish local chapters in Huron and Erie Counties to spearhead the process in this area.

By starting this on the local and state level it will force the political class inside the beltway of Washington to accept it or lose power by being voted out of office. All things that have helped the folks at the bottom of the food chain got started this way. Social Security was the brain child of Sinclair Lewis and a man called Townsend, it took a catastrophe in the form of the Depression to cause the political class in this nation to buy into it. But they did it, for they recognized that their survival was dependent on it.

We have reached a crossroads in the way healthcare is provided in this country, the skyrocketing costs of it are causing the destruction of our manufacturing base in this country. Our companies cannot compete with the other companies from nations that have a form of national health insurance. The irony of outsourcing jobs from this country to other countries, that it levels the playing field for those companies that do it. Because their workers are not only making lower wages, but are covered by national healthcare and that takes healthcare out of the the cost per product, as it is in this country.

What about the poor, the sick and young?

Beyond the cost that it imposes on our ability to compete in the global market place, there are 44 million citizens without access to healthcare and another 40 million with poor healthcare coverage, including millions of children who have been cutoff CHIP and other programs for budgetary reasons.

Healthcare is a Moral Issue

A country that fails to take care of those who have the least, is destined to end up on the ash heap of history, for if it neglects such moral questions at home, it follows that it will act without morality abroad in its foreign policy.
Isn't it time to bring our nation back to a sense of moralness and of compassion that was our foundation belief from the beginning?