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I'm a little frustrated about not hearing more concrete answers from the presidential candidates on the health-care crisis in America. Let me clarify that; I am hearing a lot about how bad the "crisis" is, what I'm not hearing is how we are going to "fix" it. Why is that?
Statistics from the NCHC...
Forty-seven million Americans, or 16% of our population is uninsured.
Over 8 out of every 10 uninsured person is from a working family. (70% of those are from families where one or more are working a full-time job, and 11% from families working part-time jobs). These are NOT lazy people who just want a "free ride", these are hard working American families.
John Edwards explains this well in a speech he made yesterday in New Hampshire...
For more than 20 years, Democrats have talked about universal health care. And for more than 20 years, we've gotten nowhere, because lobbyists for the big insurance companies, drug companies and HMOs spent millions to block real reform. Instead, they've grudgingly allowed incremental measures that do nothing but tinker around the edges -- or worse, they've hijacked reform to improve their own bottom line. So today, more Americans go without health care than ever before. Instead of prescription drug reform that brought down the cost of drugs, the lobbyists for the big drug companies got us a prescription drug bill that boosts drug company profits but doesn't cut patient costs.
And then he continues his speech, with his plan...
I have a bold plan to finally guarantee true universal health care for every single American and cut health care costs for everyone. My plan will require everyone -- business, government and individuals -- to contribute something to reach universal coverage. And I am honest about the cost: $90 to $120 billion a year, and I'll pay for it by repealing the Bush tax cuts for families above $200,000. If we end the game in Washington, we can finally have a health care system that treats the health of all our people with equal worth.
Personally, I give John Edwards a lot of credit for being honest, and not trying to "sugarcoat" the reality of this situation. I give him credit for telling the "truth", a word many politicians have become greatly unfamiliar with.
I wonder though...Is the real problem whether or not politicians can "tell" the truth, or whether or not the American people can "handle" the truth? I don't mean that in a negative way, what I mean is...Will we be able to "handle" it all the way to the voting booth? Words are a wonderful thing, but action is what is needed here. And how many people still don't even vote in this country?
Here are some interesting statistics about women voters, from an article titled "Why Millions of Women Don't Vote"...
In the last presidential election, 8 million women registered but did not vote; another 36 million potential female voters were not registered at all, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Unmarried women are the fastest growing major demographic group and represent the largest potential group of new voters, according to "The State of Unmarried America," an annual report released on June 29 by Washington-based Women's Voices Women Vote.
But many of their votes aren't there to be counted. Of the 49.5 million single, separated, divorced or widowed women in the United States, 18 million are unregistered and 5 million are registered but don't vote.
If women could just harness their collective voting power, they could be the majority in our government, they could be the third party of this country.
I know, I know, I'm a BlogHer Health & Wellness contributing editor...Why am I going all "political" on you? Just indulge me for a moment. It's because, the Health and Wellness of our entire country is at stake here, and no amount of political wrangling (even truthful, honest wrangling) is going to change that. So, who CAN change that? The answer is simple...YOU CAN. Get to know the candidates, and vote for the one YOU think will be best for our country. (For the record...I'm in no way promoting John Edwards, I simply used his speech as an example for this post).
"Politics is boring, frustrating, and gives me high blood pressure", you say? I know, me too. But even if we ignore it, it won't go away. So, if you can't beat-em, join-em.
