This may be the greatest country in the world but there are still a lot of things that need fixing. We need so many things that cost more than we can afford and to some of us it may seem that we really need the remake that Donald Trump lies about. We don’t. What we do need is fixes in some very important areas. One of the most important is in health care. I know that a lot of Republicans have spent a lot of time railing about how we should get rid of Obamacare, telling us all about everything that’s wrong with it, and yes, there are a lot of things wrong with it. But if you really stop and take a good long look you will see that most of the things that are wrong with Obamacare are wrong because the Republican’s got what they wanted in the negotiations that led to the passing of the ACA. The Affordable Care Act has become less affordable because the GOP congressmen, who forced it into this configuration, were told by their donors in Big Pharma, insurance, medical instruments and hospitals that they didn’t want a single payer system, or for the government to be in a position to dictate the cost of drugs, and they got their way. Here’s an example.
Gilead Sciences has a pill to cure Hepatitis C. That is almost miraculous. What’s not so miraculous is that the pill costs $1 to make and they sell for $1000. To make matters worse the company holds all its profits in Ireland so they don’t pay any taxes in this country.
How are they able to do this? The answer is quite simple and completely outrageous. They do it because big Pharma has paid millions of dollars into the campaigns of almost every member of the House and Senate. By doing this they have dictated to our legislators that they set up a protocol between Big Pharma and Medicare, which says that Medicare cannot, by law, negotiate any drug prices. Big Pharma now sets all prices as high as they wish and there’s nothing the US government can do about it.
This is the biggest scam in the history of the nation. We are talking trillions. What it does is create a situation whereby the costs of Medicare and by association Obamacare are through the roof. Those programs are doomed as long as the government cannot regulate the prices the drug, medical manufacturing and hospital corporations charge. It is absurd that the United States government cannot regulate prices on drugs because a bought and sold congress legislated this power away, in exchange for money to run their campaigns.
Controlling the cost of universal medical insurance would be a snap if drug prices could be brought in line and insurance companies with their twenty to forty percent profits eliminated from the equation. It’s all the egregious profits taken by the drug, insurance and medical device industries that are killing health care. Anyone who tells you differently is lying to you.
Of course that’s not the only financial aspect of the healthcare cost problem. There’s also healthcare’s share of the national budget. Our country has to finally decide what area of the economy it wants to spend its money on. We currently allocate 53% of our budget to the military. Sure everyone wants a strong military that will keep us safe and secure but 53% of the government’s total income? That’s ridiculous! Especially since the handling of all that money is the responsibility of the Pentagon, which recently admitted that it misplaced a trillion bucks. That’s right. The idiots in charge of the Pentagon have actually lost one trillion of your tax dollars and amazingly, they still have their jobs. That’s because there is no mechanism in place to check on these dolts. There never has been. That’s how the nine hundred dollar hammer came to be. Just so you can get a handle on what is governing military costs and what that costs us; one single F-35 fighter plane costs the taxpayers $178 million. And after ten years they still haven’t gotten the damn thing to work right. For that same $178 million we could send 3,358 kids to college for a year.
What we need is oversight on the Pentagon. What has kept that from happening is that every time someone suggests it, all the generals start babbling about classified information and national security and how no civilian should be privy to what the military is doing. That’s bullshit! If the military want’s to keep everything its doing under wraps then it should display some tiny crumb of self control over how they spend the hard earned money of the people they are supposed to protect. If the pentagon can’t find a trillion bucks they misplaced what makes anyone think they have the functionality to protect all those classified secrets they are so worried about?
We are currently supporting hundreds of thousands of American troops all over the world. Many of them in highly dangerous locations like downtown Tokyo, the Kudam in Berlin and various hot spots along the Riviera. Why the hell do we need to keep troops in those places other than as support for the local economies?
Dumb and dishonest as he is, Donald Trump had a legitimate point when he said we should make all the countries we are protecting cough up the money they owe us for that protection. Even a cursory glance at our military budget shows that a 16% savings could be easily achieved. The 2017 fiscal year military budget is projected to be $773.5 billion. That means about $123 billion could easily be shaved off that budget and spent on things that would actually benefit the citizens of this country. And there are so many areas where we need to spend it. How does the military waste our money? Let me count the ways. Well the army currently has about 2400 M1 Abrams tanks that cost $8.5 million each, which, as repeatedly stated it no longer needs. We are not currently fighting in places where tanks are effective but we are still manufacturing them. How many is a closely kept secret right now because the only reason to keep making them, is the 18,000 jobs they provide mostly in Pennsylvania. For those of you too young to have heard the phrase it’s called “pork”. Useless work that provides an unneeded product that keeps a politician in office.
No we don’t want those 18,000 people to lose their jobs but can’t we find a better product for them to manufacture? Most of those people were once steel workers. They made much better steel than the Chinese do. Why not put them back to work making steel and protect that steel by passing a bill that legislates; all steel used in this country be of a certain standard. This is not a tariff or in any way a trade regulation. It could be an OSHA regulation. There is also a lot of work to be done reclaiming the land that has been destroyed by he coal industry. Only a fool thinks the coal barons will have the social responsibility to do the right thing and restore this land themselves. How about restoring the dangerously antiquated Pennsylvania Turnpike or laying a high speed rail system to replace the old and slow New York Central?
We need a congress that’s interested in doing some of these things instead of just sitting on their hands and doing nothing. We have an election coming up in three weeks. That’s the perfect opportunity to throw out most of the House and just enough of the Senate to give Hillary Clinton the majority in both places. That would allow her to actually move the country ahead for the benefit of its citizens instead of just the few rich slobs that have been buying our lawmakers for the last couple of decades.
It’s up to us. We can all sit around and bitch, or we can go out and vote. We know that the Trumpets will be out there, voting to keep America white, giving away the country to the corporate interests that take your money and spit in your face. Voting to put their hero in a place where he can abuse more women than even he can imagine in his most degenerate dreams. The cost of what we need is your vote. Stop complaining, get off your ass and vote!