"The elephant has a point"

Everyone concerned about the health care "debate" needs to read the March 9, 2009, opinion article from Joe Conason, writing for Salon.com on "The questions our health care debate ignores." I would argue that the questions -- Why does every developed nation except the U.S. have universal health care? Why do they pay half as much in medical costs? Why are their infant mortality and longevity statistics superior? -- are ignored because there is no debate, just a bunch of fear peddlers engaging in disgusting and misleading news conduct.

According to Conason:

"Among the OECD's 30 members -- which include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom -- there are only three lacking universal health coverage. The other two happen to be Mexico and Turkey, which have the excuse of being poorer than the rest (and until the onset of the world economic crisis, Mexico was on the way to providing health care to all of its citizens). The third, of course, is us."

This is pathetic. If Mike Cox, Michigan's attorney general, goes through with his plans to sue the federal government in response to the current health care bill -- which is way weaker than it should have been -- I'm afraid there's little hope for the future of my already unfortunate home state.

If you think it'll make a difference -- though really, what is there to lose? -- contact Cox's people through one of the numbers listed here and stand up for those in our government who are actually trying to do the right thing by supporting health care reform.

(The comic above is by the New Jersey Star-Ledger's Drew Sheneman, who gave it the headline, "The elephant has a point.")