There is no such thing as God

Now, during the Christmas season, I get a funny feeling that I am living in the wrong era. I feel like I am back in ancient Greece and Rome over 2000 years ago when people held celebrations in honor of various Gods. Some of them believed in the God Mithras and celebrated his birth on December 25. In Rome, during December, they celebrated the life of Saturn in their Saturnalia. They believed in their gods and were devout in their celebrations. They had songs and hymns sung in veneration of their gods. They brought trees into their homes and decorated them just as we do today. Yet today we universally assume that such gods did not exist. Why do we seem to believe that our choice of god exists and theirs didn't?

Richard A. Schweder, in an op-ed column for the New York Times, “Atheists Agonsties,” suggested that the world of the twentieth century was no better than the old world. “The big causes of all the death and destruction had rather little to do with religion.” He says: “A shared conception of the soul, the sacred and transcendental values may be a prerequisite for any viable society.” In other words, we are better off in a world with religion.

There are two problems with his argument. First, religion is the cause of almost every conflict in the world today. Thousands of people are killed every year because Moslems hate Jews, Sunnis hate Shiites, Moslems hate Hindus, Buddhists hate Moslems, Protestants hate Catholics, and so on. Religion is also the cause of most of the intolerance in the world. Gay people in today’s America are being assailed and insulted by shared religious values that our society could do without.

Second, and more important, religion is the worship of God, and there is no such thing as God. God is a figment of the human imagination. Should people go on believing in God even if he does not exist? He is no more real than the thousands of local gods, witches, and ancestor spirits worshipped by primitive tribes in remote areas of the Earth. He is no more real than the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, Arabian djinn, Greek satyrs, Hindu bluts, and other assorted demons. He is no more real than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

On September 11, 2001 an event occurred that should choke the faith of every civilized person. The President, the Mayor of New York, the Fire and Police departments, and the American people responded gallantly. But one aspect of that response puzzles me. People turned to God! The churches were packed. The President declared a national day of prayer. Memorial services were conducted by religious leaders in cathedrals and stadiums. Everybody prayed. Why?

If God is real, and if God can be prayed to, and if God answers prayers and acts on our lives, why did he let this happen? Does God favor the Muslim fanatics? Does God reward Muslims who carry out jihad against the infidels by sending them to Paradise? Or is God just a myth we create to give us some comfort in times of stress.

The fact is that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of God. We can prove the existence of everything else on earth, but we cannot prove that there is a God. Unlike scientific theories, which are subject to verification, we cannot go into a laboratory or an astronomical observatory and conduct an experiment to prove that there is a God. He is conveniently invisible and unavailable.

Many people say you cannot prove the existence of God because there is something higher than mere human knowledge; call it grace, or inspiration, or being "born again." I believe we have to use our rational mind to know anything, and without common sense the rational mind is, well, irrational. It does not make sense to say we "know" that there is a God, but deny that the very faculty of knowing, the rational mind, is what you are using to “know” God.

The fact that we never see God and that God does not seem to answer anybody’s prayers should be taken as strong evidence for his nonexistence. But people want to believe in God so badly that they are willing to do so even when such belief is absurd.

Consider the various ways people worship God. There are many different religions and many different ideas about God. For some reason, most of these religions assume that they are the correct way to God. Which one is right? Are all of them right? Why should we assume that any of them are right? If there were a God, would he reveal himself only to the ancient Israelites, or to Mohammed, or to the Twelve Apostles? What about the beliefs of billions of Hindus, Janes, Buddhists, and Shintos? Have they been wandering blindly while only Christians, Jews, or Moslems have known the truth?

Most faiths presume that God is good and loving. The evidence would seem to the contrary. Is life on earth perfectly happy? No, the majority of people live in poverty, disease, war, famine, and misery. If a god was responsible for this he would have to be some detached, ruthless, amoral demon.

There is no rational, logical, or scientific reason to believe in God. Belief in God can be relegated to the realm of wishful thinking. When humans believe in God they violate every aspect of human consciousness. It is hard for people raised with religion and brainwashed by parents, relatives, and teachers, to critically examine these irrational beliefs. Humans created the concept of God to fill some deep needs.

Biologists and anthropologists believe that there are evolutionary reasons for the development of religion. Religion certainly assists humans in their fear of death. It promises a life after death. This is apparently a life in which we get together with the people we loved during our life on earth. In other words, we remember our life on earth and the people we shared it with. Death is not the absolute end of our existence. Rather, we go to live in happiness with God. It is certainly an inviting idea. The fact that we die to eternal oblivion is quite unappealing. Nevertheless, it is obviously true.We were in a state of nonexistence before we were born, and after death we return to such a state. Any other scenario is silly wishful thinking.

It is dubious indeed to argue that a shared conception of the soul, the sacred, and transcendental values may be a prerequisite for any viable society. The world would be a better place without religion. Atheists are more peaceable, tolerant, and intelligent than those who embrace religion. But more important, in a world where God does not exist, it is a violation of everything that makes us human to go on believing in fairy tales that should have been abandoned long ago.

Who Was Jesus

As we approaach the feast of Christmas it might be useful to look at what scholars say about Jesus. Was he the "Son of God?" Was he divine? Was he the Messiah? Or was he just a holy man who tried to teach certain ideas about Judaism.

Jesus’ message, that the Kingdom of God is at Hand, was not new. It expressed the common hope of the Jews of his time. His exorcisms were a traditional function of the Pharisees. His use of parables was typical of the Pharisees’ method of teaching. His Sermon on the Mount was strictly in accord with Mosaic Law. His teachings expressed traditional Jewish beliefs. The Lord’s Prayer is derived from the Kaddish prayer of the ancient synagogue. His other teachings and behavior show that he was a devoted Jew who worshipped at the temple, abided by the Jewish Law, and believed that God dwelled in the Temple. He affirmed the widely influential exhortation in Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The Gospels falsely portray Jesus as one who broke with the rigid and stale, even false, piety of the Pharisees. The Pharisees of Jesus' day were a highly respected sect of Jews. Jesus may have been a Pharisee. He appears to have followed the teachings of the great Pharisee Rabbi, Hillel. Although Jesus may have had disputations with certain Pharisees, they often had disputations among themselves.

Jesus did not found a new church naming himself as the Son of God. He was the leader of a group within Judaism. The few passages in the Bible that support the idea that Jesus wanted to start a new church are not based on anything Jesus said but on ideas that were developed after his death. Jesus wanted to renew Judaism, which already had a Temple, priests, worship, and sacrifices. Jesus believed that the Kingdom of God was at hand, and certainly did not wish to form a church which would last for centuries. To this extent, he was not very different from many other contemporary religious leaders. There were at least twenty-four Jewish sects in Jesus’ day, including the Essenes, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and others. There were a number of people like Jesus who had small followings and who went about teaching, healing, and casting out devils.

The primary teaching of Jesus was that the "Kingdom of God" was at hand. It was either about to happen or was already present through him. Although Jesus did not explicitly describe what he meant by the “Kingdom of God,” the Jews of his day would have understood him to mean that that the reign of God would be established in Israel and that the kingdom of Israel and the twelve tribes of Israel would be restored. They believed that God would rebuild the temple, and that there would be a period of tribulation followed by a last judgment. It would be, in effect, the end of the world as they knew it. Needless to say, it never happened. If Jesus had been the Son of God, wouldn't you think that he could have predicted such an event?

Leander E. Keck, former Dean of the Yale Divinity School, says: “However universal the appeal of his teachings—at least some of them—the indissoluble fact is that they were addressed to his fellow Jews, a mission that fused teaching, healing and exorcism...it takes shape in a mission so thoroughly Jewish that the gospels report not a single word of criticism of constitutive elements of the religion he inherited and shared, such as the holy days Passover or Day of Atonement.”

It is ironic that Christianity became a Gentile religion in which Gentiles and Jews mutually rejected each other. Jesus never intended his teachings to apply to non-Jews. Jesus did not preach to the Gentiles or tell his disciples to go out and convert the Gentiles. He did just the opposite. He was critical of the Gentiles. In Matthew 10:5-15, Jesus says to his disciples: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus made disparaging remarks about the Gentiles (See Matt. 5:47, 6:7, 6:22, 18:7, and Mark 10:42-43). In one case, Jesus implied that Gentiles were dogs (Matt. 15:21-26). In that encounter, a Gentile woman sought to have Jesus heal her demon-possessed daughter. Although he healed the daughter, Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). Leander E. Keck points out that the gospels do not mentionJesus going to the homes Gentiles to perform healings. There is no record of his ever visiting the cities in Israel where there were heavy populations of Gentiles. Says Keck: “Although Gentiles later were attracted to him through the gospel, he was not attracted to them, nor was he the least interested in attracting them to him.”

Jesus did not refute the Mosaic Law or create a new law. He taught strict adherence to the Jewish Law. In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus says: “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

In the New Testament, Jesus does not proclaim himself the “Son of God” in the divine sense. Although the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, refer to Jesus as the Son of God in the divine sense, those passages are considered by scholars to be inauthentic later additions to the story of Jesus. In Jesus' day the term "Son of God" applied to all Jewish men and did not mean a divine being. Jesus repeatedly says that he is not equal to God (John 14:28 “…I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I;” and John 7:16 “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” See also Luke 18:18, Matt. 19:17, Mark 13:32, 14:36, John 5:20, and Acts 2:22-24). Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man” which, scholars agree, meant only a “human being.” Reginald H. Fuller, Professor Emeritus, Verginia Theological Seminary, says: “It is not a title but means ‘human one,’ and is best understood as a self-effacing self-reference.”

Jesus was obviously a charismatic Hasid, or holy man. He probably thought that he was a prophet. When the people of Galilee criticize him he says: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house” (Matthew 13:57, See also Mark 6:4, 8:28, and Luke 7:16, 13:33 ). There are several places in the New Testament where it is indicated that Jesus thought of himself as an Elijah-like prophet.

Saint Peter does not say that Jesus is God, but a man “raised up” by God (Acts 2:22). Reginald H. Fuller explains that when Jesus asks Peter, “who do you say that I am,” and Peter answers “the Christ,” (Mark 8:27-30) “it seems more likely... that Peter meant it in the sense of the anointed prophet of Isaiah 61.1.”

The earliest Christians did not look upon Jesus as a divine person, a “Son of God” in the Greek sense. Some believed that by his death he had been “appointed” the Christ, but not that he was the Christ when he lived. The Gospel of Luke implies that Jesus was raised up or promoted to divine status by God. Reginald H. Fuller explains in The Oxford Companion to the Bible:

The meaning is not that Jesus became
something he was not before, for example,
a divine person; rather, he was appointed to
a new office and function, that of being the
one in whom God would finally judge and
save the world(Acts 3.21; Thess. 1.10) and
through whom he was already offering sal-
vation after Easter in the church’s procla-
mation (Acts 2.38).

It was only later in the history of the Church that Christians began to believe that Jesus was a divine being, a god who had come down to Earth. Neither the suffering of the Messiah, nor his death and resurrection, appear to have been part of the faith of first-century Christians. The idea that Jesus was God seems to have developed over a period of time. It was not until the fourth century AD that the Church officially accepted the doctrine that Jesus was God in human form. At the Council of Nicea in 325 AD the leaders of the Church, encouraged by the emperor Constantine, declared that Jesus was a God, “of one substance with God,” not just a man.

At this time of year when we are surrounded by beautiful decorations and music, it saddens me to realize that all of this is in honor of somebody who never existed. The real Jesus was not God or the Son of God. He did not want to start a new church. He was a Jew. That is all. All of the rest is the embellishment of two thousand years of imaginative fiction.

The Origins of Christmas

As the holidays approach, it might be useful to look at the historical background of Christmas. Christmas takes place during the winter solstice when the day is shortest and the night is longest. People celebrated the winter solstice long before the birth of Jesus. The concept of the birth, death, and rebirth of the sun became associated with the savior god of many cultures.

Thousands of years before Jesus, the Mesopotamians held a festival of renewal at the winter solstice designed to help the god Marduk tame the monsters of chaos for one more year. In ancient Greece, before the time of Christ, the winter solstice ritual celebrated the rebirth of the god Dionysus, who was deemed to have died and arisen from the dead. During the winter solstice, the ancient Romans celebrated the feast of Saturnalia in honor of the god Saturn. There were also ancient pre-Christian celebrations of the winter solstice by the Buddhists, Celts, Druids, Chinese, Tibetans, Indians, Koreans, Japanese, Native Americans, and others.

The reason so many cultures developed winter solstice celebrations was in order to cheer themselves up during the darkest period of the year. We often hear about people developing the blues during the Christmas season. This is because many people suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) and become depressed during the season when there is so much darkness. The gods celebrated in the winter solstice festivals were frequently gods of light or the sun.

Christians began celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25th during the fourth century AD. The early fathers of the Christian Church did not know the date when Jesus had been born. December 25th was the birthdate of the Roman god Mithra. Mithraism developed in Asia Minor long before the birth of Christ. It may have come from ancient Persia. Mithra was the god of light, or the Sun, and was born of a virgin. His worshippers believed that Mithra promised resurrection from the dead and that he ascended into heaven. The worship of Mithra included forgiveness of sin by baptism of initiates and a communion of bread and wine to commemorate Mithra’s last meal on earth. The worship of Mithra presented a real problem for the Church fathers because of the similarities to the worship of Jesus. In around 353 AD, the Church fathers decided to combat Mithraism and other pagan holidays by celebrating the birth of Jesus on Mithra’s birthday, December 25. Merry Mithramas!

Scholars are in general agreement that the Bible story about Jesus being born in Bethlehem is probably fictitious. We know that Jesus came from Nazareth. The Bible says that Caesar ordered a census to levy taxes and that Joseph, as a descendent of David, had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the city of David, to register for the census (Luke 2:1-5). This was written to fulfill the prophecy that the “Messiah” would be “from the house of David.” However, the Romans kept careful records of their censuses, and scholars know that there was no worldwide census at the time of Jesus’ birth.

The late Raymond E. Brown, S.S., a Catholic priest and former Professor of Biblical Studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, said in his magisterial The Birth of the Messiah, that “Luke’s reference to a general census of the Empire under Augustus which affected Palestine before the death of Herod the Great is almost certainly wrong….We have no evidence of one census under Augustus that covered the whole Empire, nor of a census requirement that people be registered in their ancestral cities.”

The Romans counted people at their place of domicile, not where their ancestors were born. They would not have required Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. They would have wanted him to stay in Nazareth and be counted where he lived. In addition, Caesar would not have taxed Judea while Herod was king. At the time of Jesus’ birth, Bethlehem would have been in an area that was exempt from Roman taxation.

The distinguished biblical scholar, E.P. Sanders of Oxford and Duke Universities, points out in his book, The Historical Figure of Jesus, that David lived 42 generations before Jesus. He asks, why would Joseph have to register for a tax in the town (Bethlehem) of an ancestor who lived 42 generations earlier? He describes Luke’s story of the Nativity as “Fantastic!” Another distinguished scholar, Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina, asks in his treatise, The New Testament: “Can it be possible that everyone in the empire was to return to the place their ancestors lived a thousand years earlier?”

John P. Meier of Notre Dame University, a Catholic priest who is considered by many to be the leading biblical scholar in the world, notes in his definitive work, A Marginal Jew, Rethinking the Historical Jesus, that, “Somewhere around 7-6 B.C. a Jew named Yeshua [Jesus], a shortened form of the Hebrew Yehoshua (Joshua), was born in the hillside town of Nazareth in lower Galilee. The Infancy Narritive traditions that locate his birth in Bethlehem of Judea (traditions isolated in chap. 2 of Matthew and Luke respectively) are probably later Christian theological dramatizations of the belief that Jesus was the royal Davidic Messiah.”

Guns and Masculinity

A gun is like a pair of elevator shoes. It confers artificial stature. Despite the strong silent image that men would like to project, the truth is that most men are emotionally frail aggregations of self-doubt and vulnerability. The possession of a gun is like a tonic, adding an exhilarating sense of power to a sagging ego.

Following the bloody massacre at Virginia Tech University, there were predictable calls for further restrictions on guns. It seems that Seung-Hui Cho, a student with a history of serious mental problems, just walked into a Virginia gun shop on February 9 and picked up a Walther .22 caliber handgun which he had ordered online. On March 16, without submitting to any waiting period, Cho went into another gun shop and purchased a 9 millimeter semi-automatic Glock 19 and a box of 50 cartridges by showing some identification and undergoing an instant background check.

Gun control advocates believe that stricter gun control laws might have prevented the bloodbath. Astonishingly, there are other people who contend that the existence of gun control laws is what caused the slaughter! They say that if every student was allowed to carry a gun there would have been somebody to stop the gunman before he began the carnage.

I have tried to imagine what the campus at Virginia Tech would have looked like with lots of students and teachers packing heat. Would it be like Dodge City where you drew your six-shooter at the risk of being cut-down by a better gunman? Would America be a safer place if every university, college, technical school, high school, home, and workplace bristled with people armed to the teeth? No way.

Let’s face it, strict regulation of guns would obviously cut-down on these murders. Serious criminals will get guns whether they are legally available or not. But your ordinary people—angry spouses, disgruntled former employees, psychotic students, paranoid loners, and others-- who actually commit most of the murders, suicides, and accidental shootings, would be less likely to buy guns if they had to apply for licenses. The main danger from guns is not from career criminals. It is from regular people like you and me.

I would require written applications for licenses by all persons seeking to buy handguns. I would require a two-week waiting period. The purchasers would have to show compelling reasons for needing handguns, such as occupations as private detectives or security guards. They would have to recite their medical and psychiatric histories. They would have to list references. Gun licenses, like drivers licenses, should be subject to renewal every four years with the same background checks as the original licenses.

Hunting is, of course, a natural and acceptable use of guns by people. Humans have been preying upon their fellow animals for hundreds of thousands of years. Even though I am not a hunter, I have no problem with it. I do not think that it is necessary, however, to hunt with an assault rifle. The object of hunting is to kill the prey, not to obliterate it. I would allow rifles to hunters, but would require all such hunters to obtain a license and undergo a waiting period and background check. I would also restrict hunting rifle use to people over eighteen years of age.

Many men who buy guns do not do so in order to hunt, or to enforce the law, or for target practice. They do so to feel stronger. They will almost never have to use the gun to fend-off an intruder. Having a gun in the house may console them for their lack of actual power, but it can also be a real cause of danger. In 2004, there were 29,569 gun deaths in the United States. In a majority of those deaths people took direct aim at—themselves. That’s right, fifty-six percent of all gun deaths were by suicide. Forty percent were homicides. More than half of the homicides were domestic homicides--people like you and me shooting their wives, husbands, family members, neighbors, and friends. There were also many accidental shootings. The number of people who actually shot someone in self-defense was minuscule.

Bob Herbert of The New York Times reported on a Harvard study comparing firearm mortality among children in the five states with the highest rates of gun ownership versus those in the five states with the lowest rates. Respondents in all 50 states were asked whether any firearms were kept in or around their home. Children in states with the highest rates were 16 times more likely to die from accidental gunshot wounds, nearly seven times as likely to commit suicide, and more than three times as likely to be murdered with a firearm. The top quarter of states with the highest gun ownership had firearm homicide rates 114 percent higher than states within the lowest quarter of firearm ownership.

Putting handguns in the hands of any students in America who wanted them might have stopped the VT gunman, but it would have also armed thousands of other paranoid schizophrenics who harbor rages similar to those of Seung-Hui Cho. The last thing we need is more guns in schools, workplaces, and inner cities. As Bob Herbert put it, “only a lunatic could seriously believe that more guns in more homes is good for America’s children.”

A Single-Payer Health Insurance System

The number of Americans without health insurance has now risen to 47 million and because of the rising cost of such insurance, the number of uninsured will probably top 50 million in less than two years. This includes millions of children. I’m sure that this does not bother George Bush and his gang of die-hard right wingers, but it does bother the rest of us.

In recent polls by ABCNEWS/Washington Post and CBS News/The New York Times, Americans by a 2-1 margin preferred a universal health insurance program over the current employer-based system. These results are in line with previous polls over the past decade which have shown large majorities of Americans favoring government-provided health insurance. So why don’t we have it? We don’t have it because health insurance companies with enormous power and money have blocked it by corrupting, strong-arming, and strangling the Republican Party and President Bush.

How would governmental health insurance work? Under a single-payer system the government would provide health insurance for all citizens in America. People ask: “How would we pay for a single-payer health insurance system? Wouldn’t it cost more and mean higher taxes?” The answer is no. Even if you are covered by your company’s plan, a single-payer system would cost you far less than the system we now have.

The Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Public Citizen Health Research Group did a study in 2003 of health insurance costs and found that if we switched to a single-payer system we would save hundreds of billions of dollars. The study said that private insurance companies in the U.S. waste about $400 billion a year on administrative costs. The waste results from the elaborate, overlapping, and redundant bureaucracy, enormous executive compensation packages, employee salaries, benefits, separate facilities, advertising, marketing, profits, and other expenses of dozens of competing insurance companies. Who is paying for this waste? You are. What would happen if we had a single-payer system in which the government was the insurer of record? The waste would be eliminated.

You pay for the $400 billion in waste through extremely high premiums and other costs connected with private insurance. Your employer pays money for health insurance which it might, in part, be paying you as salary. It also deducts a substantial amount of money from your salary for health insurance premiums. In addition, you have co-pays, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs. The cost of health insurance goes up dramatically each year, and each year companies shift a higher and higher share of the costs of health insurance to their employees. Many companies are completely eliminating health insurance coverage.

According to a study done by The Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose by an average of 9.3 percent per year for the past three years. Premiums have increased much faster than overall inflation (3.5 percent) and wage gains (3.8 percent).

Each year the average employee pays over $3,000 just for his or her contribution toward premiums for company-provided family health insurance. In addition, most workers must meet certain deductibles before their health insurance kicks-in. Deductibles for family health plans are as much as $1,715 per year. Workers may also have to pay additional deductibles for hospital stays and outpatient procedures. Most employer plans have co-pays and other out-of pocket expenses. Thus, the average employee winds-up paying over $6000 per year for health insurance and health care that is supposedly covered by his or her employer. Health insurance for people whose employers do not provide coverage is over $13,500 per year.

How would a single-payer system be paid for? (PNHP) Physicians for a National Health Program explains that the public financing already funneled to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health insurance programs would be retained. The difference or the gap between current public funding and what we would need for a universal health insurance system could be financed by a payroll tax on employers (about 7 percent) and an income tax on individuals (about 2 percent). The payroll tax would replace all other employer expenses for employees’ health care. The income tax would take the place of all current insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket payments.

A 2 percent income tax is dramatically less for most people than the amount they now pay for employer-provided health insurance. If you have an adjusted gross income of $60,000 per year, your tax would be $1,200. That’s about $4,800 less than you now pay for company insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. The plan proposed by Hillary Clinton could make the tax even lower. She would pay for her health plan by eliminating the Bush tax-cut for people making over half a million dollars per year.

Right-wing demagogues like Bush will argue that a single-payer program is “socialized medicine.” That is mendacious nonsense. A single-payer system would not do away with private doctors. People would be able to choose their own doctors, specialists, clinics, and hospitals. People would be allowed to buy their own supplemental health insurance for additional treatments and benefits just as they are allowed to do in European countries. A single-payer system would save lives and expand the rights and choices of millions of people who are trapped today in a miserable, corrupt, faulty system of costly, restricted, wasteful private health insurance.

Children's Health and The Compassionate Conservative

President Bush has announced that he will veto a bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a state-federal program that subsidizes health coverage for low-income people, mostly children, in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private coverage. The bill would provide an additional $35 billion over five years to the program, adding 4 to 5 million children to the 6.6 million people already participating. It would be financed by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack. It is supported by bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress.

Bush says that the measure is “too costly,” unacceptably raises taxes, extends government health insurance to children in families that can afford private insurance, and smacks of a federal takeover of health care.

Isn’t it reassuring to see President Bush getting tough on budget matters? This is the same president who has so far spent $455 billion on a senseless, deadly, tragic war in Iraq. This is the same president who failed to veto a single spending bill enacted by the Republican Congress from 2000 through 2006, during which time the Republicans spent an extra $158 billion on earmarks for rotten pork projects. This is the same president who reduced taxes for wealthy Americans and obtained multi-billion-dollar tax breaks for his beloved oil companies while the companies were making record profits and soaking the public with increased gas prices.

The President makes the phony argument that expansion of SCHIP is a government giveaway intended for people who can afford their own health insurance. His minions claim that in some states, people making as much as $60,000 for a family of four would be eligible under the plan. Needless to say, most families benefiting from the plan will make far less than $60,000. The nonpartisan Urban Institute estimates that approximately 78 to 85 percent of the 4 to 5 million uninsured children who stand to gain coverage under the expansion have family incomes below 200 percent of the FPL (Federal Poverty Level-- $20,650 per year for a family of four). The bill would provide penalties and make it very difficult for states to cover children of families earning more than three times the poverty level. In most states, premium payments are required in order for families with incomes above 200 percent of the FPL to enroll in coverage.

The uninsured people who will benefit from the program are the working poor with children. Many are employees of small businesses or companies which do not offer health insurance. Many others are self-employed or young people. Private medical insurance and care for a "typical" family of four in the U.S. will cost over $13,400 this year according to the Milliman Medical Index. With the high cost of food, clothing, mortgage, rent, gas, heating, electricity, telephone, transportation, water, taxes, college tuition, home repairs, trash pickup, activities for children, and hundreds of other everyday expenses, they simply cannot afford $1115 per month for health insurance premiums. They do without insurance and pray to God that nobody gets sick.

Let us try to understand what it means today to be without health insurance. According to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, lack of health insurance causes roughly 18,000 unnecessary deaths every year in the United States. Although America leads the world in spending on health care, it is the only industrialized nation that does not insure all of its citizens. People who do not have health insurance do not get the necessary medical tests, check-ups, doctor visits, vaccinations, medical procedures, medications, surgeries, and other care that they need. It is meaningless to say that they will not be turned away at hospital ERs. Often, they will avoid going there until the last minute when it is too late.

Bush, pandering to his ultra right-wing base, claims that providing health insurance for children constitutes government infringement of health care; in other words, socialized medicine. Doesn’t he realize that we now have government-provided health care under Medicare, Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, state programs such as Ohio’s OPERS, military health benefits under TRICARE, Veterans health benefits, and other programs? Does the existence of those programs constitute socialized medicine? Do they make us a socialist country? Of course not! The single-payer systems in all other industrialized countries have not made them socialist countries. They have simply made them more responsive to their people and less subservient to the power of the insurance and medical industries.

Why do all other industrialized countries have single-payer health care systems while we struggle under the domination of the wealthy, powerful insurance and medical industries? Because George Bush, the compassionate conservative, has no compassion for sick children. He has compassion only for rich supporters, oil barons, insurance companies, pharmaceutical giants, big corporations, and Arab emirs.

There is an organization in Ohio fighting for comprehensive health care for all Ohioans under a single-payer system. It is called “SPAN Ohio.” If you think all children and indeed all people in Ohio should be entitled to health insurance, contact SPAN Ohio, http://spanohio.org/.








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Why We Should Get Out of Iraq

George W. Bush may be the worst president in American history. He has continued a deadly and fruitless war contrary to the advice of his own advisory commission and despite the opposition of many high-ranking generals, most foreign governments, some Republican senators and congressmen, most Democratic legislators, and a majority of the American people. His intransigence has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, the polarization of the American public, the expenditure of billions of dollars, the creation of giant deficits, and the failure to address serious problems such as infrastructure, health care, veterans’ medical treatment, and the preservation of Social Security and Medicare.

After it became clear that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and had not been supporting al Qaeda, the President appointed the Baker-Hamilton commission to advise him on what to do in Iraq. The Baker-Hamilton report issued in December 2006 gave a bleak assessment of the situation in Iraq and suggested that most U.S. combat troops should be withdrawn in the following 16 months. Bush said he would pay close attention to their report and acknowledged that we needed a new approach to Iraq. He then increased the troop level by 30,000 and said we were staying until we achieved “victory!”

Bush keeps saying that we have to win the war in Iraq. There does not appear to be any way we can win the war. It may be that our presence in Iraq actually prevents any possible peace. Our presence attracts terrorists to Iraq from all over the world. This increases the level of violence. Recent polls in Iraq indicate that the majority of Iraqis want us out of the country. Even Iraqis who initially welcomed us now think of us as an occupying power and an irritant that is causing of much of the death and destruction in their country

Even though the American electorate showed its opposition to the Iraq war in 2006 by putting the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, the President persisted in staying the course. He suggested that those who wished to bring the troops home were disloyal and cowardly. He asked the nation to wait for a report from the general commanding the troops in Iraq, General Petraeus.

The report of General Petraeus addressed only a narrow military view of things. From a military perspective, there has been some small improvement in the security of Baghdad and other sectors in Iraq. Nevertheless, other areas remain dangerous. The insurgency continues and al Qaeda continues to be active. There are daily bombings all around Iraq, and American soldiers continue to die. The government set up by the Americans is in almost total collapse. Benchmarks established by the Bush Administration have not been met. The new Iraqi army is still not fit to defend the country. The Iraqi police are corrupt and toothless.

When asked if the war was making America safer, General Petraeus said that he did not know. We have to ask ourselves, are we fighting a war and losing the lives of young soldiers for a cause that does not make America safer? Why are we there? Does this war benefit America in any way? Do we hope to stop terrorism? Is the loss of American lives worth it? Is the expenditure of billions of American dollars worth it? Is the war, as Alan Greenspan suggested, all about oil? Are we that dishonorable?
The President, his spokesmen, and many leading Republicans claim that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will follow us home. Let us be clear on this. The invasion of Iraq enraged Muslims around the world and vastly increased the number of Islamic terrorists. Many terrorists traveled to Iraq in order to kill American soldiers. This did not reduce the number of terrorists focusing on America. It seems quite unfair to assume that it is better to have terrorists attacking soldiers in Iraq than to have terrorists attacking civilians in America. The soldiers are human beings too.

All General Petraeus recommended was a small withdrawal of troops. As you might have expected, the President seized on this as a possible way to assuage some of his critics and announced that he was going to remove 30,000 troops from Iraq by next July. This is the number of troops he put in when he increased the troop strength for the "Surge." As for the main body of soldiers in Iraq, he indicated that they would stay there indefinitely.

Democrats in Congress have tried to pass legislation and resolutions opposing the war, but they have been thwarted at every turn by Republican filibusters. Republicans like George Voinovich have offered pious pronouncements on the war, but when it has come down to voting for change, they have buckled down to Bush and Chaney. It is going to take a new president and new congress to get us out of this mess.

A few months ago I wrote a newspaper column on getting out of Iraq. Here it is:

GETTING OUT OF IRAQ

The American public was slow to catch on. As our troops searched every inch of Iraq to find those weapons of mass destruction (wmds) that the Administration claimed Saddam Hussein was hiding, word filtered out that that none could be found. Reports also showed that there was no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. I knew that Saddam was not cozying up to Osama bin Laden. Saddam is a secular Moslem, very different from Osama’s belief in fanatical Islamic jihad. However, I did not know that there were no wmds. I just accepted the word of the President that they had proof that Saddam had such weapons. When word came down that there were no wmds, I, along with many Americans, felt defrauded.

It took a long time for the public to realize that the war was a horrible, tragic mistake. The Bush White House never admitted making a mistake. The President gave alternative rationales for the war. It was necessary to “remove a vicious tyrant” and to “establish a stable democracy in the Middle East.” Many Americans realized, however, that we should not go to war to remove tyrants or to establish democracies. Such a foreign policy would keep us forever at war. Most Americans realized that this war had nothing to do with protecting America.

I wonder what would have happened if the President had come out and said: “We made a mistake. There are no wmds and Saddam Hussein is not supporting al Qaeda. We are going to pull our troops out as soon a possible.” Perhaps such a statement could never have been made. It would have subjected the President to tremendous scorn and ridicule. However, rationalizing the war and continuing the presence of out troops in Iraq has been a bigger mistake.

I know that Bush’s excuse for continuing the war is that Islamic terrorists are concentrating on our troops in Iraq and are therefore not attacking us in America. One has to ask, how fair is it to our valiant young soldiers to make them the main focus of terrorist atrocities? Besides, the President is wrong. The war has created thousands of new terrorists, men who would never have become terrorists had it not been for the Iraq war. Although many of them are traveling to Iraq to attack our troops, others are still looking for ways to attack us on American soil. The presence of British troops in Iraq did not prevent terrorists from blowing up London subways.

The public has finally caught on. It has come to realize that the war is an enormous waste. Our troops are dying for nothing. The Iraqi people hate us and do not care if we create a democracy there. They also hate one another with burning fury.

Now the public has dethroned the Republicans in Congress and sent a strong message to Bush. Get out of Iraq! I doubt that he will do it. He is the Commander in Chief and he doesn’t have to listen to Congress on foreign policy. He thinks that getting out of Iraq would amount to a humiliating surrender. It is as if the protection of his ego trumps the lives of our soldiers. During the campaign he accused the Democrats of wanting to “cut and run.” Well, the Democrats won the election because the public wants the President to cut the crap.

It is time to admit we made a mistake and time to get out. President Nixon realized that we had to get out of Vietnam and finally withdrew our troops. President Reagan withdrew our troops from Lebanon. President Clinton withdrew our troops from Somalia. We’ve done it before and our government is still going strong.

I realize that extracting 140,000 soldiers from Iraq during a violent insurrection is not going to be easy. We do not want to leave total chaos behind. One possible way to do it was suggested by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek Magazine. I have been reading Fareed for years and have been amazed by his brilliant, clear mind. Zakaria is of Muslim heritage, was born in India, and is the Editor of Newsweek International.

Zakaria says that we must get the Iraqi parliament to publicly ask American troops to stay. If they don’t, we should get out on the next plane. Why should we stay if they don’t even want us? Iraq must also “forge a national compact,” which means that they should agree to a loose confederation which shares oil revenues and suppresses sectarian violence. We should stop trying to provide basic security to Iraq’s cities and villages. We should reduce our force to 60,000 men and use it only as a rapid-reaction force to secure certain core interests. Most of the troops should be stationed in four super-bases outside Baghdad. American advisers should be embedded in every Iraqi fighting battalion. In a few years, says Zakaria, we should entirely withdraw from Iraq.

My one disagreement with Zakaria is that I would not keep forces in Iraq more than one more year. I would gradually reduce them to the point that at the end of the year there are only a few advisers left. If all hell breaks loose when we leave, as it might, too bad.

The Danger of Islam

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Muslim feminist who was born in Somalia and who lived in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya before moving to Holland where she was eventually elected to the Dutch Parliament. She is currently a fellow at the think tank, American Enterprise Institute. In her book, Infidel, she tells about her own genital mutilation, beatings, and the oppression as a woman in the Muslim world. One of the things she says in her book is that the 9/11 hijackers represented more than the lunatic fringe of Islam: “I knew that a vast majority of Muslims would see the attacks as justified retaliation against the infidel enemies of Islam.” Needless to say, Ayaan has been the target of many death threats.

After every savage atrocity perpetrated by Muslim suicide bombers, including the horrific bloodbath of September 11, 2001, Islamic scholars claimed that such sanguinary behavior was not in the true spirit of Islam. We were told that there was nothing in the Koran justifying such attacks. We were informed that Islam is a peaceful religion, that suicide is forbidden, and that suicide bombers were acting contrary to Islamic law. This would all be very comforting if it were true. Unfortunately, it may not be true at all.

Most Americans have noticed that there was almost no outcry by Muslim nations against the 9/11 slaughter. Virtually no denunciations of the massacre were heard from Muslim clerics around the world and in America. Polls have shown strong support for Osama bin Laden in the Arab world. An election by the Palestinians was won by Hamas, a terrorist organization which calls for the destruction of Israel and which is responsible for many suicide bombings.

It may be that our civilization is in grave danger not only from Muslim fanatics but from the whole Muslim world. Sam Harris, in his book The End of Faith, maintains that because of the basic beliefs of Islam, the world is in danger of nuclear devastation. He argues that it is not merely the fanatic Moslems that wish to destroy us. It is ordinary Muslims. Says Harris: “We are at war with precisely the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran, and further elaborated in the literature of the Hadith, which recounts the sayings and actions of the Prophet.” Even moderate Muslims “consider the Koran to be the literal and inerrant word of the one true God.”

Harris demonstrates that although there is a type of jihad that is used as a means of waging war against one’s own sinfulness, “no amount of casuistry can disguise the fact that the outer (or ‘lesser’) jihad—war against infidels and apostates—is a central feature of the faith. Armed conflict in ‘defense of Islam’ is a religious obligation for every Muslim man.” Harris says that: “…The duty of jihad is an unambiguous call to world conquest.”

In his book, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, Bernard Lewis writes: “the presumption [of Muslims] is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule.”

Sam Harris says: “We must come to terms with the possibility that men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry.” Their religion promises a paradise of pure delight for all those who die in jihad. Because they are enjoined to go out and kill the infidels, and because they will experience eternal pleasure in well-watered gardens with young, fair, dark-eyed, full-busted virgins, the idea of dying by H-Bomb does not frighten them. It rather excites them.

To Muslims, all non-Muslims are “infidels.” Harris cites many quotations from the Koran (or Qur’an) condemning non-Muslims, including: “God’s curse be upon the infidels” (2:89); “God is the enemy of the unbelievers” (2:98); “We shall let them live awhile, and then shall drag them to the scourge of the Fire. Evil shall be their fate” (2:126); “those that deny Our revelation We will burn in fire (4:56) (This last is particularly alarming in light of the fires of 9/11); “Slay them (infidels) wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage” (2:190-93).

We have been conditioned by movies and television to believe that everything in life will turn out okay. Well, maybe. But it is also possible that everything will turn-out horribly. It is possible that because of basic Muslim beliefs, we will wind-up with a nuclear cataclysm that will make the 9/11 disaster seem like a mere pin-prick. I do not know what we can do to prevent this outcome. I’m sure that there are many Muslims who do not wish us harm. But many others do. The war in Iraq is certainly not the answer. That war has only exacerbated our struggle with terrorists. For the same reason, war with Iran would not be the answer. We are confronted with deeply angry, humiliated, fanatical people all over the world. This story may not have a happy ending.

Pope Benedict and Islam

Every day around the world, Muslim clerics denounce the United States, Europe, and Christianity. Many commentators have observed that the seeds of terrorism are sown in the schools and mosques of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and the whole Muslim world. Even in countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan, which are supposed to be our friends, the governments cannot control the violently anti-western speech of the Muslim clerics. Young people throughout the Muslim world are brought-up to believe that the United States is the “Great Satan.” We are lucky to have any friends at all in those places.

Recently, in Afghanistan, a man was charged with converting from Islam to Christianity. The judge announced that the man would be executed for this heinous offense. The man’s life was spared only after world-wide indignation led to pressure on the government of Afghanistan to set him free.

Hatred for the West and Christianity (not to mention Judaism) is not confined to Muslim terrorists. It is part of the fabric of every-day Muslim thinking. Nevertheless, when Westerners hear about criticism from Muslim clerics they do not go out into the streets screaming white-hot hatred. Muslims around the world, however, turn into violent angry mobs at the mere drawing of a satirical cartoon about Muhammad in a Danish Newspaper.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, former head of al Qaeda in Iraq, said: “There is no doubt that Allah commanded us to strike the Kuffar (unbelievers), kill them, and fight them by all means necessary to achieve the goal” (presumably, a world where everybody is a Muslim). Zarqawi quoted the Prophet Muhammad: “I was ordered to fight people until they bear witness that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, establish regular prayers, and pay Zakat (purifying charity).”

This past year, in Regensburg Germany, Pope Benedict XVI quoted a conversation between the 14th-century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II and an educated Persian on the truths of Christianity and Islam. “The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the Pope said. “He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’” The Pope went on to say that violent conversion to Islam was contrary to reason and thus, “contrary to God’s nature.” For these comments the Muslim world was in a fury. They have burned Christian churches and murdered a Catholic nun. Can you imagine Christians doing that in response to Muslim criticism?

I am a little sick of hearing all this sympathy people have for the Arabs, Hezbollah, and the Muslims. The Pope may have been politically incorrect, but I think he was right. The hatred Muslims have for Christians did not originate with the founding of Israel or with the two Gulf Wars. It goes back to the Crusades. It is based upon the progress and prosperity of the West and the decline of the Middle East.

One does not hear about Christian terrorists going to Muslim countries and flying airplanes into their tallest buildings. One does not hear about Israeli suicide bombers blowing-up Muslims in mosques or public places. There are no vast worldwide networks of Christian or Jewish terrorists planning atrocities against innocent Muslim civilians. There is no basis in Christianity or Judaism for carrying out holy war against people of other faiths. One is not executed in Israel, Europe, or America for converting to Islam.

Let’s face it, there is something barbaric about the Muslims of the Middle East. I’m not just talking about those who become terrorists. I’m talking about the majority of citizens. Most of them applaud when terrorists kill thousands of people in the World Trade Towers. They refuse to take any steps which would lead to peace with Israel. Can you imagine how much more prosperous, happy, and safe they would be if they accepted the presence of Israel in the Middle East and entered into trade and tourism treaties with the Israelis? They cannot do it because their religion forbids them. Their hate is far stronger then their feelings of self-interest. They are a bitter people; bitter because history has left them behind and has exalted Western power over them..

In a poll conducted by Al Jazeera, almost half of all Saudis said that they have a favorable view of Osama bin Laden's sermons and rhetoric. This helps explain why we have not been able to capture him. As repugnant and loathsome as the 9/11 bombings and other atrocities have been, bin Laden has wide support in the Middle East. Osama is surely hiding in a remote part of Pakistan. There is a $25 million bounty on his head, but he remains safe from capture. The bounty has no lure for the tribesmen who are sheltering him. The United States does not send a Delta Force to capture him because a conspicuous American raid would endanger the life and rule of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's leader, who is a U.S. ally. If we ever caught bin Laden there would be an uprising throughout the Middle East.

The problem of terrorism is not with a mere handful of fanatics. It is with the world of Islam.

Why the Terrorists Hate Us

In the weeks after 9/11, police searched the lodgings of the hijackers. They found copies of a letter written by the leader of the group, Mohammed Atta, to his fellow terrorists encouraging them with the words, "remember that today we will be with women." The letter repeatedly referred to the reward the terrorists would receive in Paradise. I was struck by the use of such words for people about to commit murder and suicide. I wondered whether the terrorists' sexual repression and our attitudes about women's rights had anything to do with their hatred of Westerners.

In a recent article for the New York Times, David Brooks pointed out that the terrorists (or jihadists) belong to a branch of Islam called Salafism which is not traditional Islam but a modern fantasy version of it. These fanatical fundamentalists believe that their attacks against Western people are part of a holy war or jihad, and that if they die while engaged in a jihad they will be martyrs and will go directly to Paradise regardless of any sins they may have committed. Their idea of Paradise is not one shared by all Muslims. It reflects the Arab background of sexual taboos and living in deserts where there is scant water or green foliage. In this Muslim Paradise there are lush gardens, vineyards, and rivers flowing with clear, cool water. Muslim men recline on couches in soft silk attire and drink wine without getting inebriated. The terrorists believe that in Paradise they will each be served by 72 beautiful virgins or "houris" who will attend to their every need. There is no corresponding reward for Muslim women.

To Western men, the promise of 72 virgins might not be enough incentive to strap bombs onto their bodies and go ignite them in public places, but it is comprehensible for jihadists when one looks at the culture in which they were spawned. The Arab world is one that has built-up resentment against Westerners for centuries. As the distinguished Princeton professor, Bernard Lewis, explained in his books, including The Middle East and What Went Wrong, the Muslim nations once led the world in power and civilization. Compared to Saladin and the Muslims, the Crusaders were crude barbarians. This changed during the Middle Ages. As Western Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, it passed Arabia in military power, commerce, wealth, and civilization. Moreover, in modern times, European countries conquered and subjected Arab lands, thereby further humiliating and enraging the Arabs. The ultimate insult and humiliation occurred when Europe and America supported the establishment of Israel, a non-Muslim nation, on the Arabian peninsula. America's subsequent support of Israel, and Israel's defeat of Arab armies in three wars, exacerbated Muslim rage against the United States. These events and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians have provided a fertile field for the growth of Muslim fundamentalism and fanaticism.

Fareed Zakaria, the brilliant commentator for Newsweek Magazine, described Muslim rage in an article entitled Why They Hate Us. He said, "Bin Laden and his followers are not an isolated cult like Aum Shinrikyo or the Branch Davidians or demented loners like Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber. They come out of a culture that reinforces their hostility, distrust and hatred of the West and of America in particular." Zakaria then noted: "Osama Bin Laden has an answer--religion. For him and his followers, this is a holy war between Islam and the Western world."

Islam has always relegated women to a status that Westerners consider second-class. In the past, fundamentalist Islam required women to cover their bodies and faces with shawls called burqas. In the book, A History of the Arab Peoples, Albert Hourani wrote about the status of Moslem women and the belief that women had dangerous power. In strict Muslim lands, women have few rights and are prevented from attending school, driving, and voting. Muslim men are expected to avert their eyes from women who are not related. There are many sexual taboos.

In modern times, Western influence has fostered changes in the roles of Muslim women. Muslim men see pictures of American and European women in short skirts, bikinis, or underwear, pushing our consumerist society in sexually suggestive advertisements. Now, with military conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, they see female soldiers in military fatigues. It is deeply disturbing to them. I have always believed that you can gauge the advancement of a civilization by the way it treats its women. The more a nation treats women with equality and freedom, the more civilized the country. The more a nation withholds freedom and equality from women, the more barbaric it is.

For terrorists, the freedom of women in the open culture of the West is a source of immense frustration. They cannot buy into such freedom and still practice their religion. Most terrorists are unmarried young men, and their relationships with women are circumscribed by their strict interpretation of Muslim law. The solution promulgated by Osama Bin Laden is to achieve martyrdom by carrying-out jihad against the West. In Paradise, all of their sexual frustration will be alleviated and all anxiety about women will disappear. Perhaps Muslim terrorism is really an acting out of Muslim men's sexual frustration.

Someone once described the War on Terror as an attempt to swat flies with a rifle. Perhaps we would have better luck if we could convince the young male jihadists that their belief in Paradise is nothing more than a fantasy driven by the frustrations and strivings of a desert people. Perhaps they would not commit terror if they knew what seems obvious to me; that there is no such thing as Paradise, and even if there was, they wouldn't go there.

The Democrats' Reforms

The pathetic reforms enacted by the new Democratic Congress are so disappointing and inadequate that Democrats like me have settled into a state of despondent gloom. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid should hang their heads in shame. Perhaps we should have been more cynical, but there is a Pollyanna streak in most liberals that causes us to assume that election of Democrats will result in genuine change.

Congress does not have unlimited power, but George W. Bush cannot veto changes in the rules of ethics for the House and Senate. Nevertheless, Nancy, Harry, and their party members failed to do anything significant about Congressional ethics and failed even to address other pressing problems.

The new rules forbid legislators from accepting free meals, trips, and other gifts from lobbyists. However, as reported in the New York Times on February 11th, lobbyists have merely changed such gift-giving into fundraising outings. The Democrats have not only failed to reform the outrageous influence of lobbyists, they have perpetuated the process. Any person with a conscience knows that lobbyists should never, ever, ever, ever be allowed to give money to congressmen or senators either in the form of gifts, donations to campaigns, or fundraisers.

Congress has failed to do anything real about the scandal that allows congressmen and congressional aids leaving Congress to fatten their wallets by becoming lobbyists. The only thing the Democrats could think of to deal with this abuse was to extend from one to two years the period during which congressmen, senators, and aids are forbidden to become lobbyists after leaving office. Wow! Now there’s something! The new rule should be that congressmen, senators, and aids can never, never, ever become lobbyists, period.

The Republicans found a way during their reign in Congress to fatten their friends and constituents with huge amounts of pork in the form of “earmarks.” Earmarks were often inserted into appropriation bills in backroom deals at the last minute. There were no committee hearings on the projects, no debate, no discussion, no committee votes, and no publicity. The earmarks added many billions of dollars to appropriations bills. What have the Democrats done to correct this theft of taxpayers’ money? They have simply required that the names of the legislators who sponsored the earmarks be attached to them. Big deal! I have studied earmarks and it is easy to find out who sponsored them. Senators and Congressmen loudly brag about the earmarks they have gotten for their constituants. The Democrats should have abolished earmarks completely and made all such local pork legislation subject to hearings, debate, publicity, and committee votes.

The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit was one of the most repugnant pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. It was dictated to Congress by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Under it, seniors got a small drug benefit while pharmaceutical and insurance companies reaped unconscionable windfall profits. When they were elected to take-over Congress, the best thing the Democrats could think of to do was to insist that the government be allowed to negotiate drug prices. They did nothing to take the benefit out of the hands of the private insurance and drug companies which are ripping-off taxpayers for billions of dollars. Every true Democrat knows that the 2003 law should be completely scrapped and that all seniors’ medications should be paid as an added benefit of Medicare. Such a change would actually save the government many billions of dollars.

Finally, the Democrats have not made any effort to get health insurance for all Americans. It is as if the idea of switching to a single-payer system is too radical for our dear Democratic representatives. Isn’t it about time that Democrats stopped being intimidated by Republicans and started standing up for something?

Senator Larry Craig and Hypocrisy

Last year I wrote a column about the scandal which broke when Congressman Mark Foley of Florida was found to be making sexual advances toward pages in the House of Representatives. I said that there was a great deal of hypocrisy among the Republicans about such "Family" issues. Now Senator Larry Craig of Idaho has been exposed as a homosexual. There are probably still are some other Republican representatives and senators hiding in the closet. I have no problem with their being gay. What bothers me is that the Republican Party continues to cater to the anti-gay elements in America. While not all Republicans are homophobic, Republicans have taken the lead in efforts to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Senator Craig has spoken out in favor of such an amendment. The 2004 Republican Platform called for the amendment and opposed allowing gays in the military.

Shortly after I wrote the Mark Foley column, Ted Haggard, a key Evangelical in the religious right and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitted that he had had a homosexual affair with a man. As an evangelical, Haggard was expected to speak out against homosexuality as sinful. When Haggard spoke against same-sex marriage, his homosexual lover, exasperated at the hypocrisy, exposed him.

I don't think Senator Craig should have resigned because of his homosexuality. Rumors regarding Craig's sexuality have circulated for decades. In 1982, as a congressman, Craig denied having inappropriate relationships with male pages. According to The Idaho Statesman, a 40-year-old man reported having sex with Craig at Washington's Union Station in around 2004. The Statesman also spoke with a man who said that Craig "cruised" him for sex in 1994 at the REI store in Boise. There are other reports of Craig’s homosexuality going back to his college days. He has obviously been an active gay man all his life. I do not approve of anybody, heterosexual or homosexual, soliciting sex in public places, but the description of what Senator Craig did hardly seems like enough to justify criminal prosecution or the frantic calls by leading Republicans for his scalp.

In my opinion, Senator Craig was entrapped by a police officer. In an article in the Op Ed section of The New York Times, Laura MacDonald explained the series of signals given by gays who wish to solicit sex in a bathroom (what an awful, smelly place to solicit sex!) The signals described by Ms. MacDonald are identical to those attributed to Senator Craig. There are several phases. Senator Craig allegedly peeks into the stall. Then he takes the stall next to the policeman. He then taps his foot and touches it to the officer’s shoe, which is positioned close to the divider. He then slides his hand along the bottom of the stall. There are more phases — maneuvering, contracting, foreplay, and payoff — but Senator Craig was arrested after the officer presumed he had “signaled.”

Ms. MacDonald explains that no straight man would be offended by these signals because he would not know what they mean (until now). In order for the signals to progress to a higher level, the recipient of the signals would have to signal back a willingness to go further. No straight man would do so. It is clear that the police officer, by tapping his foot, did signal back to Craig that he was ready for gay sex. That is entrapment.

Frankly, I do not understand how any gay person can be a Republican or an Evangelical Christian. There is even an organization of gay Republicans called the "Log Cabin Republicans." I can understand that gay people may be conservative on many issues and may consider themselves born-again Christians, but right-wing Republicans and Evangelicals have viciously attacked gays for many years. They have not only sponsored efforts to prevent gay marriage or civil unions but have opposed including homosexuality in equal rights laws and hate-crimes legislation. They have opposed allowing gays in the military and have spoken out against the Supreme Court decision nullifying anti-sodomy laws. I would think that the right to be free from bigotry and discrimination would be by far the most important issue for gay people.

Senator Craig should have followed the lead of former Governor Jim McGreevey of New Jersey and come out of the closet. He should have declared that he is a homosexual. He should have announced that he was not going to resign and that he was switching to the Democratic Party. He would probably have been welcomed by the Democrats. The Democrats have not been as hypocritical on the subject of homosexuality as the Republicans.

Here is the column I wrote last year:

HYPOCRISY

Republicans proclaim themselves to be the party of morality, family values, and religion. At the time of the Clinton impeachment proceedings, they self-righteously condemned Clinton for lying under oath about having sexual relations with a White House intern. On the floor of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, Bob Barr and others called for Clinton’s scalp. It later turned-out that at the time of the impeachment, Gingrich was having an adulterous affair with a congressional staffer. In addition, a campaign worker admitted that she had sex with Newt while he was still married to his first wife.

During the impeachment, Henry Hyde, who oversaw Clinton's impeachment proceedings as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, admitted he had had an extramarital affair with a woman who was married and had three children.

Bob Livingston, Speaker of the House after Newt Gingrich, resigned from the House in the wake of revelations about his past adultery.

Bob Barr, a leader in the impeachment battle, said: "The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit." Barr was married three times, paid for his second wife's abortion, failed to pay child support to his first two wives, and while married to his third wife was photographed licking whipped cream off of the bare breasts strippers.

Over the years we have been subjected to repeated lectures on morality by the likes of Bill O’Reilly (charged with sexual harassment), Rush Limbaugh (guilty of drug abuse), and William Bennett (gambling addiction). We have been bombarded by the moral sermonizing of right-wing ministers like Jimmy Swaggert (voyeurism), Jim Baker (sexual affair and prison time for fraud), Pat Robertson (got wife pregnant before they were married), and Robert Tilton (exposed as a fraud by Diane Sawyer). We have seen the Republican Congress degraded by unscrupulous lobbyists like Jack Abramoff, corrupted by big businesses like the Tobacco, Oil, Health Insurance, and Pharmaceutical industries, and besmirched by the lure of pork and earmarks.

In recent years the Republican Congress has been led by the likes of Tom DeLay (indicted), Bob Ney (indicted), and Randy Cunningham (convicted). Now we are confronted with the scandal of Mark Foley. It appears that Republican leaders like Dennis Hastert, John Boehner, and Tom Reynolds knew about inappropriate advances by Mark Foley toward congressional pages months ago —and possibly years ago. One can pity Mark Foley for hiding in the closet so long, but it was profoundly hypocritical for him to act as chairman of a committee for protection of children while he was writing sexually suggestive emails to teenage pages. It was far more hypocritical, however, for those congressional leaders, who obviously knew about Foley’s behavior, to ignore it.

I am not saying that Republican sexual and other misbehavior is more reprehensible than that of Democrats. We are all human beings and are subject to all the weaknesses conferred on us by human nature. The sexual drive in most people, both heterosexual and otherwise, is the most powerful instinct we have. Sexual misconduct is probably commonplace by members of both parties.

But I believe that there is a striking difference between Republicans and Democrats on one item—hypocrisy. Republicans, conservatives, right-wing commentators, and evangelical and religious leaders specialize in hypocrisy. You would think that the constant sermonizing about morality and family values would stick in their hypocritical craws, but they go on telling us what is moral and what God wants.

The Republican leaders of the House of Representatives at the time of the Clinton impeachment were a bunch of hypocrites. The Republican House leaders today, who knew months--and possibly years--ago about Mark Foley’s improper behavior toward pages, are hypocrites. They covered-up in the hope of retaining a congressional seat in the coming election.

This November, if you want to have a government free from sexual, moral, and ethical scandals, you will not do any better with the Republicans than with the Democrats. If, however, you want to reduce the sheer size of the dung-heap of hypocrisy that has been spread by Republicans around Washington for the past six years, you are better-off voting for the Democrats.

The Soul of Mother Teresa

Recent reports that Mother Teresa suffered from profound doubts about God throughout her life, and may have been an atheist, yet went on helping the poor and destitute of Calcutta without the support of religious beliefs, makes her legend more remarkable. It is not remarkable that an atheist would devote her life to helping others; many atheists have done so. What is remarkable is that a woman who became a nun and dedicated her life to God, suffered long-term doubts about the existence of God but continued on her mission anyway.

Her story reminds me of the story of Jean Meslier, a French priest in Etrepigne, Champaigne, during the Seventeenth Century. For forty years Meslier attended to the needs of his congregation, performed all Catholic rites and rituals, and never complained or let-on that he did not believe in God. When he died, people found a 633-page manuscript in which Meslier explained his non-belief in God and gave reasons for such non-belief. He stated that religion was “but a castle in the air,” and that theology was “but ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system.” He argued that religion was not necessary to morals. Meisler’s writings were influential with Voltaire and other thinkers during the Enlightenment.

The theologian William Lane Craig and others have claimed that it is impossible to be a moral person without belief in God. Without God, they say, there are no absolutes and everything is relative. After describing the horrors of Auschwitz, Craig said: “And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz: there is no absolute right and wrong: all things are permitted. But no atheist, no agnostic, can live consistently with such a view.” Yet if you look at the life and works of Mother Theresa, it seems that Craig is wrong.

The philosopher Blaise Pascal claimed that although people could not prove the existence of God, they should believe in God anyway. If they were right, they gained heaven and if they were wrong they lost nothing. On the other hand, if people disbelieved in God and were wrong, they would suffer damnation. It was called “Pascal’s wager.” The idea was that if you were smart, you would bet that there was a God.

The problem with Pascal’s wager is that many atheists cannot so cavalierly ignore their doubts. It seems that Mother Teresa, like Jean Meslier, could not shake her doubts about the existence of God. Nevertheless, she went on through the filthy, fetid, malodorous, impoverished slums of Calcutta tending to the needs of the most destitute, downtrodden, diseased, starving people of India. She did so because she thought it was the right thing to do regardless of whether there was a God. She did so out of natural human pity, compassion, and love. She did not take Pascal up on his wager and just believe in God for the sake of hedging her bets. She persevered in her work without God.

I suspect that the sheer misery and misfortune of the people she was tending to may have strengthened Mother Teresa in her disbelief. How could God allow people to suffer so much? Why did God not answer her prayers and come to the aid of these wretches? She probably concluded over the years that God was not going to do anything.

Richard Dawkins said that “Pascal’s wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God.” William James said that such a “mechanical calculation would lack the inner soul of faith’s reality; and if we were ourselves in the place of the Deity, we should probably take particular pleasure in cutting off believers of this pattern from their infinite reward.”

The philosopher Martin Buber said: “he who knows God as something by which he is to profit is the godless man--not the atheist who addresses the Nameless out of the night and yearning of his garret window.”

Many atheists would like to believe in God, but can’t. Nevertheless, they believe that there is right and wrong. They seek to do the right thing, and to live rich, good, worthwhile lives. They are not known for wild, riotous, immoral behavior. Many scientists, college professors, and intellectuals are atheists. They contribute much to the world. Many modest, decent, kind people are atheists. They strive to live exemplary lives. Some are, like Mother Teresa, saintly.

The Medicare Drug Benefit Law

The Medicare drug benefit law is one of the most repugnant and corrupt laws ever passed by Congress. By enacting it, the Republicans sold out to the powerful and wealthy pharmaceutical and insurance industries in return for huge contributions to their campaigns. Senior citizens were shafted.

Last year Senior citizens received a shock. They realized that although they paid deductibles and had been paying insurance premiums and co-pays for their prescriptions, their coverage under the Medicare Part D drug law would expire about halfway through the year. According to USA Today, an estimated 3.4 million people covered by the law fell into a “coverage gap” under which they had to pay the full cost of their medications for the remainder of the year. The gap, which Congress calls the “doughnut hole,” begins when drug expenses, including the amount paid by insurance, total $2,250. There is no further coverage until expenses reach $3,600, an amount which most seniors would not reach by December 31. Nevertheless, seniors were required to go on paying premiums to insurance companies or be expelled from the plans.

The “coverage gap” is hardest on people not poor enough to qualify for extra financial help under the program but who still cannot afford $3,600 or more for their drugs. Many people with multiple prescriptions and people with expensive medical conditions, such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and heart disease, reach the gap early in the year and are going into debt in order to pay the full cost of their medications. Senator Byron Dorgon of North Dakota said: “under the Medicare prescription plan, the pharmaceutical companies got the doughnut and seniors got the hole.”

The Medicare Prescription Drug Law, which was narrowly passed in 2003 by Republicans, and was opposed by most Democrats, was dictated by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Between 2000 and 2004 those industries contributed over $68 million to Republican candidates for public office.

In return, the Republicans made sure that the prescription drug law would be taken out of the hands of the government and put into the greedy hands of private industry. In their zeal to destroy Medicare and Social Security, the Republicans created a confusing web of competing and inefficient plans run by private insurers who receive huge subsidies from the federal government. Seniors were required to choose from a maze of differing plans by May 15 or suffer serious penalties.

Republicans repaid their corporate sponsors by insuring that the federal government could not negotiate the price of drugs with manufacturers. They further prohibited the importing of less expensive drugs from other countries such as Canada.

If you are a senior citizen who has now reached the “coverage gap” and must now pay the full cost of your prescriptions, consider the fact that if the Congress had simply established the drug program as an add-on to basic Medicare, there would be no coverage gap and all of your medications would be paid for the rest of the year directly by the government. It would cost far less than the government pays for the present program.

It is estimated that the waste and inefficiency of the present program will cost the government $800 billion more over the next eight years than it would have cost by making the program an added benefit under Medicare. That means that it costs the taxpayers $800 billion more under the present program to provide seniors with coverage of less than 25 percent of their drug costs than it would cost under Medicare to provide seniors with 100 percent of their drug costs.

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the administrative costs, marketing, and profits of the insurance industry will add many billions more dollars to the cost of the current program than would be required if the program were purely governmental under Medicare. Moreover, if the government were allowed to negotiate the prices of drugs with pharmaceutical companies, as it now does for the Veterans Administration, it could save almost $560 billion over the next eight years.

Virtually every other country in the industrialized world imposes constraint on drug prices, either through formal price controls or governmentally negotiated prices. As a result, people in other countries pay much lower prices for medications than do people in the United States.

Pharmaceutical Companies and Drug Costs

In the movie, “The Constant Gardener,” the beautiful Rachel Weisz plays the wife of a British diplomat in Africa. She discovers that a pharmaceutical company has been testing a new drug on unknowing African people and that the drug has been causing deaths. The drug company is covering-up the deaths, and it has the wife murdered. When the husband takes-up the cause, he is hounded by the company and by his government and is finally murdered. After the credits in the movie are shown, there is the usual disclaimer by John Le Carre, who wrote the book, that none of the characters in the story are based upon actual persons; but then he goes on to say, “as my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard.”

It turns out that there are some similarities to the movie in the testing on African children by Pfizer of a drug for meningitis called “Trovan.” Apparently, Pfizer failed to obtain informed written consent from the parents of the children tested, and obtained a back-dated approval for the testing by the Nigerian ethics board. The medical group, Doctors Without Borders, harshly criticized the testing. There have arisen questions of whether the drug was linked to a number of deaths from liver damage. Families of the children who died have filed suits. A documentary called “Dying for Drugs” has been made describing this incident as well as other predatory behavior by big pharmaceutical companies carrying out testing in Africa. The drug companies have been able to test drugs in Africa without complying with FDA regulations. They also attempted to stop the manufacture and shipping of cheap AIDS drugs into Africa .

The picture of a rapacious pharmaceutical company painted in “The Constant Gardener” is reflected in the activities of the rich, powerful, and avaricious drug companies in America. These companies have, by constantly raising the prices on their most needed drugs and by the exertion of enormous lobbying power in Washington, brought-on a crisis for people, particularly older people, who cannot afford critical medications. It is hard to believe that this suffering of Americans is being inflicted by fellow Americans in greedy drug companies.

In 2002, the average price of the fifty drugs most used by senior citizens was nearly $1,500 for a year’s supply of a single drug. Many seniors use from six to ten medications a day, and the prices for their drugs are higher than for other drugs. As a result, for the past few years, nearly one in four seniors reported that they skipped doses or did not fill prescriptions because of the cost.

Pharmaceutical companies justify the high cost of medications by the claim that they must engage in Research and Development (R & D) of new drugs. In fact, R & D is a very small part of drug companies’ costs. Much of the R & D for new drugs is done by taxpayer-funded research at academic institutions, small biotechnology companies, or the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These organizations license the medications to the drug companies. Most of the drugs developed by the pharmaceutical companies are slight variations of older drugs already on the market. These new drugs are manufactured in order to cash-in on already profitable drugs. For example, we now have six statins (Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor, LPravachol, Lescol, and Crestor) which all do basically the same thing.

The real reason for the high cost of drugs is profits. The pharmaceutical industry is by far the most profitable industry in America. According to Fortune, in 2002 the combined profits ($35.9 billion) for the ten top drug companies on the Fortune 500 list were more than half the profits of all of the other Fortune 500 businesses put together. Drug companies increase prices on drugs several times a year, and during 2002 the drug companies increased prices by almost double the rate of inflation. The non-profit group, Families USA, stated that the former chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Charles A. Heimbold Jr., made $74,890,918 in 2001, plus $76,095,611 worth of unexercised stock options. The chairman of Wyeth made $40,521,011 plus $40,629,459 in stock options. Meanwhile, millions of Americans have been forgoing their necessary drugs because the costs are so high.

Needless to say, the pharmaceutical industry has enormous clout in Washington, particularly among Republicans. Drug companies contributed $17 million to candidates for office in 2004, two-thirds of it going to Republicans and one-third to Democrats. They have bought themselves considerable power. Since 1998, the drug companies have spent $758 million on lobbying—more than any other industry. In Washington, the drug industry has 1,274 lobbyists, more than two for every member of congress.

The pharmaceutical industry had a direct hand in writing the Medicare prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003. The law provides only limited coverage for seniors, but promises a windfall for the drug companies. The drug lobbyists were able to insert a provision in the bill that the government could not negotiate with drug companies on the price of the drugs. They also made Congress provide that less expensive drugs could not be imported from Canada or other countries, even if they were American-made drugs which were being re-imported. There were rumors that congressmen were either bribed or threatened in order to pass the bill. After the new law was enacted with the help of Rep. Billy Tauzin (R. La.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which had jurisdiction over the bill, Tauzin became head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the drug industry’s major lobbying group. His salary is reportedly $1 million a year.

The pharmaceutical industry is a disgrace to America. The Senators and congressmen from both parties who play footsie with them are a disgrace. It is time the American people woke up and spoke up.

America's Sick Health Insurance System

Are you covered by your employer’s health insurance plan? Are you confident of continued coverage in the years to come? Well, good morning! Did you forget to set the alarm? It is time to wake up and face the obvious. You are not going to have health insurance in the years to come. Forget it! Let’s start with a few facts.

General Motors recently agreed with the United Auto Workers Union to cut back on its annual expense for employee health care by about $1 billion per year. Because the costs of health insurance are rising dramatically, the amount of those cuts, plus the huge increases in health insurance premiums, are going to have to come out of the pockets of GM employees.

Delphi Corp., currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, will demand that the unions agree to drastic cuts in health insurance coverage for employees. In the future, Delphi employees will have to pay much of their health insurance coverage out of what little remains in their pockets. Ford and Daimler Chrysler are also negotiating similar health insurance cuts with the UAW. Companies all over America are either eliminating health insurance coverage entirely or significantly raising the amount of employee contributions to premiums and co-payments. You may love your company’s health insurance plan, but you can start kissing it goodbye.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research Educational Trust found that in the past five years the number of companies offering health insurance to their employees declined by 13 percent. This does not include the large number of companies, such as GM and Delphi, which are vastly reducing the amount of health care coverage and raising employee contributions to premiums. According to the Kaiser study, health insurance costs are escalating far faster than the rate of inflation. For the four years prior to 2005, the increase in health insurance costs was over 10% per year. They continue to rise. This rate of growth is more than three times the growth in workers’ earnings (2.7%) and two-and-a-half times the rate of inflation (3.5%). Since 2000, health insurance premiums have gone up 73%. Most workers whose companies provide health insurance paid $2,713 in 2005 toward the $10,880 premiums for family coverage. As the companies cut back, and the cost of insurance surges, this amount will continue to rise like the floodwaters of Katrina.

Meanwhile, it is not surprising that health insurance companies continue to be hugely profitable. Health insurance company profits are rising every year. Weiss Ratings said that profits for the nation’s health insurers jumped $5.9 billion to $8.7 billion in just the first three months of 2004. In May 2004 Aetna announced an 11% jump in first quarter net income. Meanwhile over 45 million people are without any health insurance at all and the number is rising every year. A study by the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 people die prematurely each year as a result of being uninsured. Lack of health insurance is a major cause of bankruptcy in America. It is also the cause of untold suffering.

We need governmental action now to protect the citizens of America. Even Roger Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, said: “We would welcome a more proactive role from elected officials at the national and state levels in broad-based strategies to address the U.S. health care crisis.” The answer is to do what Canada and virtually every other developed democracy in the world has done; switch to a single-payer health care system. In such a system the government could provide universal health care coverage for all Americans at a cost to taxpayers well below what’s now paid annually by employers and workers.

The system we now have is enormously expensive and wasteful. A study by the Cambridge Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Public Citizen Health Research Group, stated that the U.S. wastes more on health care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all of the uninsured. Administrative expenses for health insurance companies cost more than $400 billion a year. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage for the uninsured. Companies and individuals pay for these administrative expenses in the form of higher and higher premiums.

If we had a single-payer system, all of the extra administrative expenses would be eliminated. The Harvard study illustrated that the participation of private insurers in any health care system dramatically raises administrative costs. That is why the new Medicare drug benefit program will be so expensive. The study said, “A fragmented payment structure is intrinsically more expensive than a single payer system. For insurers, it means a duplication of claims processing facilities and reduced insured-group size, which increases overhead.”

We already have an agency set-up to administer health insurance—Medicare. In a single-payer system, everybody in America, like everybody in Europe and the rest of the industrialized world, would be guaranteed health care. Companies like Delphi would be less likely to file for bankruptcy, and American workers would have far greater job security. GM, Ford, and Daimler Chrysler, could lower the cost of cars by around $1,500 per car and become more competitive and profitable. American workers would actually have more money in their pockets to buy the cars and goods produced by the companies they work for. The huge reduction in the cost of premiums would more than offset the taxes needed to fund the system.

If all those other industrialized countries can have a single-payer system, we can. Don’t say that the other countries have inferior health care. That is nonsense! Our citizens are less healthy than those in Europe, Canada, and Japan. We may have high technology, but the United States ranks 21st out of 27 countries in infant mortality, 17th in life expectancy of women, and 21st in life expectancy of men. While our health care costs rise, and the health care industry in America grows fat and wealthy, the quality of our health care is slipping into third-world status.
We like to think that we live in an open democracy where every person has a say in our government, but actually, we live in an oligarchy where our President and Congress are beholden to wealthy and powerful companies which really run America. These companies are able to thwart every effort to provide our citizens with health care at reasonable cost.