EDITOR:
Well here we go again. The party of no has been reactivated. With the history of being against Social Security, civil rights, Medicare and the stimulus package, they are back targeting health care reform.
The tea braggers should just go to the nearest corner and take a time out.
The town hall people should forego town halls and go to study halls. Not that they are against health care reform so much, they want to maintain the status quo, and don't want to interfere with the profits of the insurance companies.
Sarah Plain's claim is that Obama's health care plan will create "death panels" that would encourage euthanasia.
Any country that would allow Sarah Palin to rise to fame should be classified as stupid. Some of you people voted for her.
Glenn Beck says on national TV that the president is a racist. Good old Rush compares the health plan to Nazism.
No one would say that the U.S. health care system, which is failing more than 50 million people completely, is the leading cause of bankruptcy, that is making U.S. companies non-competitive, and that sucks up over 17 percent of GDP while producing life expectancy and infant mortality figures that make some third world countries look good.
The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 45.7 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.
This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans. So when somebody claims that we have the best medical in the world tell them the facts.
The facts: Healthy life expectancy. There are 27 other countries that exceed the United States in healthy life expectancy, including Australia, Greece, United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and France. At 69 years, the United States has the same healthy life expectancy as Slovenia.
Infant mortality rates. Of the over 150 countries rated, fully 38 countries had lower infant mortality rates than the United States: Japan, Sweden, Finland, Singapore, Slovenia, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Portugal and the Czech Republic.
Mortality rate. Citizens in the U.S. are clearly more obese than those of other countries, often at more than twice the rate of other countries.
Cost. Despite spending more than any other country on health care, we rank 38 just behind Morocco. Child well-being, in which the U.S. ranked second to last when compared to 21 comparably "rich" countries based on 40 different measures.
Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything on their way to crazy land.
Support universal health care because it's the right thing to do for all Americans.
Jerry Denis Sullivan
Minden
