Canada for President, 2008!!
I'm supporting John Edwards, expressly because of his notion of universal health care. The United States and Mexico are the only developed nations who fail to provide universal health care for their populations. The United States is also the nation that spends the most on health care - even though an extremely significant percentage of the population isn't covered. That means that every other industrialized nation is getting MORE health care for LESS money. Something is wrong, yes?
Consider this - somebody with no health care gets sick. They can't afford to go to the doctor's office because they have no health care, and they can't afford to take a sick day because the US doesn't require businesses to provide paid sick days. So they go to work every day. They're getting sicker and sicker, and getting everyone in their place of business sick too. Now all those people have to go to the doctor (if they can afford it) while our first person is just getting sicker and sicker until he eventually collapses. Now he's taken in to the hospital and requires major surgery, which is MUCH more expensive than the simple medication he would have required if addressed immediately (in the majority of cases, early treatment and preventive maintenance are MUCH cheaper than emergency treatment of a developed disease or injury).
Add on top of this the fact that health care in America comes with the added expense of millions of dollars of lobbying, and major profit markups, and advertising expenses (I'm supposed to REQUEST medicine from my doctor? Isn't that HIS job?), and you see how not having universal health care is dramatically RAISING our costs.
If this little anecdote isn't proof enough, investigate the actual numbers, and compare the US health care market with the universal health care of other developed nations.
