If "We The People" don't stand up and get this done NOW, when, if ever, will we have another chance?
Paraphrasing a quote from Michael Moore's movie Sicko: When asked why every British citizen should have free health care, Tony Benn, former member of Parliament in Britain said: If you go back it all began with democracy. Before we had the vote all the power was in the hands of rich people. If you had money you could get health care, education, look after yourself when you got old. What democracy did was to give the poor the vote and it moved power from the marketplace to the polling station, from the wallet to the ballot. What people said was very simple: In the 1930's we had mass unemployment but we had no unemployment during war. If you can have full employment by killing Germans, why can't you have full employment by building hospitals, by building schools, recruiting nurses, recruiting teachers? IF YOU CAN FIND MONEY TO KILL PEOPLE, YOU CAN FIND MONEY TO HELP PEOPLE!
In 1948 a leaflet was issued which stated the following: "Your new national health service begins on the fifth of July. What is it? How do you get it? It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care. Everyone rich or poor, man, woman or child can use it or any part of it. There are no charges except for a few special items. There are no insurance qualifications. But it is NOT A CHARITY! You are paying for it mainly as taxpayers and it will relieve your money worries in times of illness." Somehow those few words sum the whole thing up.
A report from The American Medical Association gives statistics comparing the health of 55 to 64 year olds concluded that British people are healthier than their counterparts in America in almost every category of illness. Americans had more cancer, heart disease, hypertension and lung disease than the British. The poorest people in England live longer on average than the richest people in America.
What's wrong with this picture? Why does it take our representatives in Washington over 1,000 pages to explain a health care plan? Why is America finding it so difficult to find the money to help Americans "relieve their money worries in times of illness" when our Congress has found the trillion dollars required to kill Iraqis? Why could we find another trillion dollars to bail out the greedy, incompetent Wall Street tycoons whose fraud nearly took us over the cliff into depression?
Remember the old typing exercise from school? "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country!"
If every British citizen since 1948 has had universal health care, why can't the richest country in the world accomplish the same 60 years later? Because "We The People" do not stand up and use the ballot to speak louder than the greedy who run the insurance companies and drug companies wallets.
"We The People," the REAL people who know universal health care is a must NOW have to speak up. Be louder than the Fox News crowd who gathered in D.C. last weekend. Speak louder than the bigots who fight it because they can't stand having an African American in the White House. Speak louder than Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the right wing puppets.
If "We The People" don't stand up and get this done NOW, when, if ever, will we have another chance?