A Commonwealth Fund report in the October, 2007 journal, Health Affairs, revealed that Americans spend double what six other industrialized nations spend on health care. This report revealed that the U.S. spends $6,697 per capita on health care, or 16% of our Gross Domestic Product. The other nations spent less that half that $3,128 in Australia or 9.5% of GDP, $3,326 in Canada, or 9.8% of GDP, to a low of $2343 in New Zealand. Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are also included in the study. This report indicates we pay more because of a fragmented system that has excessive administrative costs and allows the pharmaceutical companies, insurance industry, hospital chains and HMO's to profiteer because of the inefficiencies and inequities in the present system.

The reason the present system doesn't work well is not for lack of money, because the U.S. taxpayers pay more in public subsidies for health care than any other country except Germany. Total spending on health care already far exceeds what universal coverage would cost.

Perhaps it is time for us to assess our nations' spending priorities. A look at the national budget reveals what we really value. More than one half of the budget funds military expenditures. Much of the national debt and its interest can be attributed to militarism. This nation is spending more on the military than the combined total of every nation on earth. (Some of the cost of the ongoing war on Iraq is not included in the federal budget.)

In a recently released book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economic professor Linda Blimes make note of the opportunities lost because of the cost of this war. They note that the U.S., being a very rich nation in terms of GDP, can fund this militaristic debacle, but we need to consider how we could have spent these resources for the benefit of human needs. They cite social security, health care and aid to developing nations.

Congress and the current administration continue to try to balance the budget by cutting domestic spending. Recently the Bush Administration vetoed an expansion of a children's health program and continue to cut health care benefits for veterans.

Another study by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Economics Department titled "The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities" in October 2007 reveals that each $1 billion spent on the military creates 8,555 jobs. Each billion spent on health care would create 10,779 jobs and every billion dollars spent on education would create 17,697 jobs.

So why are we so reluctant and fearful of a single payer universal health care system, when it could actually improve our economy and create more jobs? Perhaps part of the answer lies with the fact that we have been misinformed and manipulated by the profiteers of the present system. In the 1990's the airwaves were saturated with ads designed to squelch any attempt to reform and expand health care to more people with words like "rationed care" and "socialized medicine". These sound byte ads were used to frighten and disempowered us from making needed changes for a more just health care system.

Recently I had a conversation with a retired community member who prides himself as an advocate of the conservative free enterprise economic system that precludes government interference. This man had experienced a heart condition that required hospitalization and drug therapy. He related how well Medicare had covered the cost of his treatment and was well pleased with his Medicare coverage.

As a life-long Republican, he voted for Senator Carl T. Curtis during the 1960's and 1970's. In 1968, when Medicare passed with bipartisan support, Senator Curtis voted against it because it was "socialized medicine." When I suggested to this neighbor that we needed a universal health care system that would cover all citizens, he was adamantly opposed because he had heard that the 'Canadian system did not work.'

It is odd, isn't it? He is so pleased with his single payer plan, but so opposed to all of us having one. Also, he reveals how easy it is to be misled. In documented points of fact, the citizens of Canada express overwhelming support for their system. They are not pushed into bankruptcy by medical bills. They expect and receive essential preventative and early care.

We may have trouble finding a perfect system, but as a nation we can do much better than we are doing now in meeting the health care needs of our citizens. We have to educate ourselves about better ways and then have the discernment and political will to see that our policy makers understand that everyone deserves access to excellent primary health care.