LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

McCain must explain health care position

Virgil A. Sestini, Las Vegas

Monday, June 30, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

Conservatives and John McCain continue to cry out against a national health care system. They moan about the excessive costs, citing billions of dollars should the plan be implemented. Why is it they can justify trillions in debt incurred by the Bush administration principally because of our involvement in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but have no compassion for millions of Americans who cannot afford basic health insurance?

John McCain should answer these questions:

• We can build hospitals, provide health care and repair infrastructure for people whose culture teaches them to despise Western civilization and all that it means, so why can’t our country afford to pay health care costs for its own citizens?

• Why does he proclaim that a $5,000 tax credit for citizens wanting health insurance will be enough to offset major costs of private insurance? Where’s his guarantee that private companies will not raise their premiums and profits to match his tax rebate offer? What about those families that simply cannot afford insurance even with the stipend?

• How can he justify continuing a shameful national policy of allowing so many people to endanger their lives by going without health insurance?

• Why are we the only major country without universal health care for its people? Explain how countries such as Canada, Ireland, England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain can afford universal health care but we cannot. Is it because conservatives are in the pocket of insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry and the health profession?

Discussion: 1 comment so far…

By sooo_gothic

6/30/08 at 5:49 p.m.

Suggest removal

That isn't the worst of it. How is it that all the first world countries AND most developing countries have health care for all of its citizens? Places like Latin America have health care for everyone, and we don't? The best quote I heard was from a British lawmaker who said, "If you have enough money to kill people, you have enough money to heal people." So why don't we spend even a tenth from the Iraq War, and put that into things like infrastructure, more money for schools, and public healthcare. I'm not saying a tenth of the Iraq War would cover all that, but it would do something.