President Obama:
45,000 Americans will die this year for lack of medical care. Every day, 122 real human beings will die unnecessarily. Can you look those people in the eye as they lie dying, and tell them that saving their lives is not worth adding even one penny to the federal deficit? Can you say it face to face to even one of them? You should be prepared to do that.
It was worth adding to the deficit to support record profits and record bonuses for Goldman Sachs et al, even after they had crashed our world’s economy. They got huge amounts of money from all of us with no delay and no conditions (unlike even emergency food funds). They remain unregulated as they continue playing the same disastrous games today, while more Americans every day lose their jobs, lose their savings, go hungry, become homeless, die of treatable conditions, and sink into despair.
If it costs us $150,000 a year for each soldier in Afghanistan, how many lives (besides their own) could be saved by bringing even one of them home? Medicare, for the oldest and sickest people in the country, costs only $6,000 to $10,000 per person, per year. So the savings from each single soldier not sent to Afghanistan could cover medical care for at least 15 of those Americans who will otherwise die. In fact, the money would probably go much further, since any additional people covered would be younger than 65 and not already disabled.
The cost of just the 12,000 additional soldiers you’ve recently ordered to Afghanistan, at $150,000 each per year, could pay for medical care for at least 180,000 uninsured Americans.
A single billion of those billions of dollars given to Wall Street speculators and their amazing bonuses could pay for medical care for at least 10,000,000 uninsured Americans. Do you remember how desperately people struggle out here in the real world? Do you remember the sorrow they feel?
Can you look any uninsured or underinsured American in the eye, and tell them that their lives are not worth adding even one penny to the federal deficit? Can you tell them that their lives are worth less than supporting reckless speculation, or worth less than occupying another country?
Please remember this year’s doomed 45,000, and consider the choice not to save them. What do we really value?