Our country is embroiled in controversy and debate over health care reform. Focus on the purpose of health care has been lost. Health care has two purposes: one is to keep people healthy and two is to get people well when sick.
Our public officials squander our limited and scarce resources during a period of a crumbling economy. They are financing wars in three countries, subsidizing the Israeli military machine and spending trillions of dollars financing 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe. Then they tell us there is no money for health care. Instead, we should be building 800 public health care centers stretching out across the United States, providing a public health care system which includes:
ENo fees/no premiums
EComprehensive cradle to grave coverage
EAll inclusive -- general, dental, eyes, physical therapy
EUniversal -- everybody in, nobody out
EPublicly funded
EPublicly administered
EPublicly delivered
We can afford to provide a first-rate, world-class, free public health care system for our own people, if we get our priorities straight.
We need health care reform based upon everybody in and all the profiteers out.
Health care is supposed to be about people, a human right, not about profits.
Representing workers employed in smoke-filled casinos suffering from cancers and health and lung problems, I know a little something about why we need health care reform now.
Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council
Warroad